Lessee

A lessee is the party who is granted a lease by a lessor. In plain English, a lessee is the person with the right to occupy a property under a lease and who usually pays rent and, in many cases, other sums such as service charge. In day-to-day private renting, your occupier is normally called a tenant and the contract is a tenancy agreement, but the language overlaps, for example documents will often still use “lessor/lessee” even when people are talking about landlord/tenant.

For landlords, “lessee” becomes genuinely important in flats and blocks, because the word is commonly used for leasehold ownership. If you own a long lease flat and let it out, you are a lessee of the freeholder (the superior landlord), and you are also the landlord (or lessor) to your own tenant. That two-layer structure affects what you can control. For example, the building’s external repairs, insurance, communal heating, lifts and cladding issues, including EWS1 forms are usually managed by the freeholder or a managing agent. Your tenant may still hold you responsible for property condition inside the flat, but your ability to fix the root cause may depend on the superior landlord acting promptly, which can drive housing disputes.

As a lessee landlord, you also need to respect your own lease covenants. Many leases restrict pets, subletting, alterations, or the number of occupants. If your tenant makes pet requests, you may need to check whether the superior lease permits pets before you consent. Similarly, your property listings must not promise something (parking rights, storage, pet-friendly terms) that the lease does not allow.

The Renters’ Rights Act changes how you manage your tenant-landlord relationship. Section 21 notice is abolished and most private lets become open-ended periodic tenancy arrangements, with possession relying on Section 8 notice and specific grounds for possession. That makes it even more important to understand your position as a lessee, because if the superior lease limits what you can offer or delays repairs, you cannot simply “end the tenancy” as a workaround.