Source:  NCSU COOPERATIVE EXTENSION, 8/10/21


When one inherits or purchases an interest in open farmland – particularly between March and November – chances are good someone is growing crops or pasturing livestock on it.  This person or operation may be someone who holds title in co-tenancy with other non-farmer owners (e.g. a sibling as farmer), or it may be a non-title holder or someone outside the immediate family, related by blood or otherwise (e.g. a surviving spouse who has inherited an undivided interest in the land).  Either way, the person farming the land as a tenant in common will be considered a tenant as regards the undivided co-ownership interests of the non-farmer owners.

The term “tenancy” (from Latin tenir, “to hold”) is a general description of a person’s “estate” (applied in law 13c. from Anglo-French astat, “condition, rank, standing,” itself from Latin status) in land. In other words, tenancy describes the person’s position in ownership, whether owner alone, owner with other owners, or non-owner occupying with permission of the owners. The term “tenancy” now colloquially is used in two main contexts: 1) as reference to someone on the land with permission of the owner; 2) descriptive of a form of estate describing co-ownership, or co-tenancy, where by an owner is a co-tenant. (See Understanding Title in Land). This paper uses the term to describe the former legal relationship of a person to the land – one who does not own the land, but has a legally-enforceable right of possession and not trespassing.

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