The Real Leasehold Interest of the Tenant in the English Law/ An Analytical Comparative Study in the Iraqi Civil Law

The leasehold interest is considered, as a general rule, a personal right under the English Common law of customary origins, which is unwritten and based upon judicial precedents of the English courts. It is worth-bearing in mind that this law recognised nine types of contracts for lease, the most of which create personal rights, that is to say, term of years absolute or fixed-term leases, tenancy at will, tenancy at sufferance, equitable lease, tenancies by estoppel, and perpetually renewable lease contracts. Whereas only three of them, that is to say, periodic tenancies, leases for life, 999-year leases create real rights, represented by temporary property ownership. As the Iraqi civil law No. (40) of 1951, supported by majority of Iraqi jurists, considered the leasehold interest as a personal right, although the amended Iraqi land tenancy law No. (87) of 1979 tended more towards real than personal right.