You say tomato

You say Tomato, I say Tomato – but it's still a round red fruit
 
I often talk about ducks and chickens, and how just because you call something a chicken, doesn't make it a chicken.  This is usually a reference to employment law contracts, and how just because you say someone is self employed, doesn't mean that they are.
 
Of course this applies to many areas of law, such as landlord and tenant.  Just because you say someone is in occupation under a licence (and so much easier to remove) doesn't mean that they cannot demonstrate that in reality they are a tenant (and so much harder to remove) and so it is important to be realistic about your contractual relationship with another party, and not simply rely on what it says in the contract.
 
However, what is also important is to make sure you are consistent in the contract and to understand the implications of what you are saying.  In a recent case where an Alms House was trying to remove an occupant from one of their properties for antisocial behaviour, they came unstuck due to the poor and inconsistent wording used by the charity in offering the occupier accommodation in the first place.  Whilst the charity no doubt wanted to save money by doing it all themselves, the litigation that ensued 10 years later in trying to unravel exactly what the true position was, no doubt proved that this was a false economy.  Whilst the facts eventually showed that the Alms House were right, had the contract been clearer the occupier would have been much less likely to have tried to argue that there was any ambiguity on her status.  So good sense prevailed and the law came to the rescue of the Alms House, but at a very high price.
 
If you need to understand the difference between a licensee and a tenant, and how to make sure you can remove occupiers with the minimum fuss and, more importantly, the minimum cost, drop me a line at stephanie@kleymansolicitors.com, where actions are just as important as words.
 
Kleyman & Co Solicitors.  The full service law firm.  We know the difference between fruits and vegetables!