Managing Landlord and Tenant Relationship: The ADR Option.
Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Every terrestrial being has to contend with the twin problems of food and shelter.1 For human beings, food is a product of some activity on land, using “land” in a wide sense of including not only the solid part of the earth's surface, but also the space covered by waters. As for their shelter, it is usually (at least in modern times, if not before) embedded in some sort of structure on land, otherwise known as “building”.2 To engage in an agricultural activity or secure housing accommodation, therefore, one needs to acquire some interest in land or at least obtain the permission of another who has acquired an interest in land.
One of the universally recognized means of acquiring an interest in land is the leasehold device, from which arises a landlord and tenant relationship. Indeed, landlord and tenant relationship is as old as human existence. The Biblical account of the origin of man reveals that after creating Adam, God put him in the Garden of Eden as a tenant. Seeing that Adam was lonely, God made him a companion in the person of Eve. Thus, landlord and tenant relationship antedates husband and wife relationship, parent and child relationship and other human relationships. As tenants in the vineyard of God, Adam and Eve covenanted not to pluck a certain fruit from the orchard. Upon their breach of the covenant, God forfeited their lease!3
