the.com/tenancy
Paying someone else's mortgage while calling the mold charming.
means The legal arrangement by which you get to live in a place you don't own, in exchange for rent and a signed promise to care about things like 'carpet condition' on move-out.
from Traces back to Latin 'tenere' — 'to hold.' A tenant is literally one who holds (not owns) property, the same root that gave us 'tenure,' 'tenacious,' and 'lieutenant' (one who 'holds the place' of another). The '-ancy' suffix turns the holding into an abstract state — the condition of holding on, which, as any renter knows, is also an accurate description of waiting for the landlord to return your calls.
- legal status
- right to occupy, not to own
- joint tenancy
- die first, your share vanishes automatically
- deposit myth
- rarely fully returned, almost universally
- etymology
- from latin tenere, to hold