Immediate Lessors

It is very important to be aware of the precision of the Valuation’s terminology: “immediate lessor” simply means the person from whom the occupier named in the adjoining column was leasing the property. The word “immediate” is used because long chains of letting and subletting were common. In fact, it was more usual for the immediate lessor to be a middle-man of some sort that the outright owner of the property. So “immediate lessor” is not the same as landlord.

Other terms sometimes used in this column are:

"Reps of," an abbreviation for “Representatives of”, indicating that the individual named was dead at the time of the valuation and his or her legal interest in the holding was being represented by a family member or by an executor;

“in Chancery”, meaning that the property is the subject of a legal dispute;

“in fee”, meaning that the occupier is also the legal owner of the property;

“free”, meaning that the occupier has no lessor, but no formal legal title, in effect squatting.