Licences and tenancies at will—residential focus

FORTHCOMING CHANGE: The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 27 October 2025. For guidance regarding the Act’s impact on residential tenancies in England, see Practice Note: Renters' Rights Act 2025—key provisions.

A licence generally permits someone to do something on another’s property which would otherwise be unlawful. Licences do not generally benefit from the same level of statutory protection that many leases do.

A tenancy at will is a tenancy which is terminable at the will of either the landlord or the tenant. They are flexible but do not provide either party with any certainty or security.

Licences and tenancies at will are often seen as a way to allow occupation and use of premises on an 'easy in, easy out' basis.

Although an assured shorthold tenancy under the Housing Act 1988 (HA 1988) allows a landlord to let residential premises without the tenant obtaining long-term rights of occupation, there are still some advantages to a landlord in creating a residential licence rather than a tenancy. Licences can provide greater flexibility and do not provide the range

To view the latest version of this document and thousands of others like it, sign-in with LexisNexis or register for a free trial.

TAKE A FREE TRIAL

Latest Property News

Occupiers’ liability and the threshold test for duty of care (Lillystone v Bradgate)

PI & Clinical Negligence analysis: Upon appeal, the High Court found that a claimant casual footballer paying to play a ‘knockabout’ game at school premises where there were no arrangements in place to retrieve a ball kicked out of play into another part of the defendant’s sports facilities (adjacent sports playing fields) caused his own injury when he climbed a 2.1m gate and severely lacerated his hand. The claimant was a trespasser while climbing the gate between two adjacent parts of the premises where he was not a trespasser. The defendant’s duty of care did not extend to providing any system or facilities to aid ball retrievable, despite the trial judge’s findings that doing nothing and waiting was ‘not what football players would do’. The threshold test imposing a duty of care was not met because the claimant decided to climb the locked gate to gain access to adjacent playing fields. What amounts to ‘reasonable’ safety of visitors under section 2(2) and (5) of the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957 (OLA 1957) appears to fall firmly within the characteristics equating to a definition of ‘reasonable’ amounting to ‘adequate’, rather than equating to the dictionary definition of reasonable ‘based on or using good judgment and therefore fair and practical’. On the facts and circumstances of this case the sports premises were safe, despite there being no facility for ball retrieval. The danger to the claimant only arose because the claimant decided to take a risk to climb a gate that was an obvious danger. Written by Abigail Holt, barrister at Garden Court Chambers.

BPF responds to GLA and MHCLG consultations on London housebuilding measures

The British Property Federation (BPF) has published its responses to consultations by the Greater London Authority (GLA) and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) on measures to support housebuilding in London. BPF welcomes the proposals as a step in the right direction to improve scheme viability and accelerate housing delivery in the capital. However, it says the measures do not go far enough to address London’s structural viability challenges. BPF highlights concerns including the short, time-limited nature of the proposed relief, the exclusion of some housing models, barriers facing small and medium-sized developers, and the limited scale of Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) relief.

Property weekly highlights—22 January 2026

This week's edition of Property weekly highlights includes in relation to the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 publication of draft regulations providing details of the written statement and information sheet and commencement regulations which bring into force provisions relating to discrimination in the private rental sector in Wales, HMLR updates and a new portal design, a new government Building Safety Newsletter, a partial response to the consultation on reforms to the energy performance of buildings regime, analysis of proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework, BPF’s response to the consultation on non-domestic smart meter roll-out, research on the impact of ESG on residential property valuation and cases on the right to manage, the definition of a dwelling for the purposes of residential service charge, dispensation from statutory consultation for residential service charges, bankruptcy and matrimonial property, business rates and advertising rights and SDLT overpayment relief.

DESNZ publishes final evaluation of domestic PRS energy efficiency regulations

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has published the final evaluation report of the Energy Efficiency (Private Rented Property) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2016, applicable to England and Wales. The report, published on 21 January 2026, covers the implementation of the regulations, provides evidence on compliance levels, and estimates the regulatory impacts. The evaluation was conducted by ICF, Verian, Ereda Consultants and Professor Peter Kemp on behalf of the department. This final report follows two previous interim evaluation reports published in earlier years. The evaluation comprises a main report of 67 pages and a technical annex of 82 pages, both available as PDF documents with reference number RAF079/1718.