What a lease actually conveys
Most states ask whether a lease is long or short. Georgia asks what interest passed. Under O.C.G.A. § 44-7-1(b), a lease for less than five years conveys only a usufruct — the right to possess and enjoy the premises — unless the contract says otherwise. A lease of five years or more is presumed to convey an estate for years, an actual interest in land. This is a Georgia rule; elsewhere a fixed term is simply a tenancy for years.
The exam trap: a three-year lease has a definite beginning and end, so candidates pick estate for years. Definiteness is not the test. Georgia's five-year line controls.
Tenancy at will and the unequal notice
When no time is specified for termination, O.C.G.A. § 44-7-6 construes the tenancy to be a tenancy at will. It is not a one-year term, and it does not renew annually — the statute supplies neither.
Ending it requires unequal notice under O.C.G.A. § 44-7-7: 60 days' notice from the landlord, 30 days' notice from the tenant. The most common error is assuming the statute treats both sides alike at 30 days. It does not, and reversing the two is equally wrong. The longer landlord period protects the tenant's housing.
Holdovers
A tenant who stays after the term expires without the landlord's consent is a tenant at sufferance. If the landlord consents — by accepting rent, for example — the holdover becomes a tenant at will, and removing him now takes the landlord's 60 days' notice.
He is never a trespasser subject to self-help. Self-help removal is illegal in Georgia; the landlord must use the dispossessory process. Nor does a holdover create a new one-year estate for years; Georgia law creates no automatic renewal.
Who pays the operating expenses
- Gross lease — the tenant pays one rent covering service charges and the landlord pays the operating expenses.
- Triple net lease — the opposite: the tenant pays taxes, insurance and maintenance on top of rent.
- Percentage lease — retail; base rent plus a percentage of gross sales above a breakpoint.
- Ground lease — a long-term lease of land only, silent on building operating charges.