Ain’t nothin’ goin’ on but the rent

• Covers the recent case of Garraway v Phillips, exploring the reasoning including historical definitions of ‘rent’ by the law.

Is rent measured in coin—or in labour? In pounds—or in effort? In the law of landlord and tenant, ‘rent’ appears deceptively solid: a sum written into a tenancy agreement, capable of calculation and increase. Yet the history of property law reminds us that rent was not always monetary. It could be wheat, or peppercorns, or days of ploughing; it could be service rendered rather than currency exchanged. When modern housing legislation speaks of rent, which of these meanings does it invoke?

That question came before the Court of Appeal in Garraway v Phillips [2026] EWCA Civ 55, where a tenancy required no money at all—only two days’ work each week on the landlord’s estate. The issue was not whether the work had value. Plainly it did. The issue was whether that value counted as ‘rent’