repair. They cannot be evicted unless the landlord serves a formal notice to end the tenancy and successfully opposes the grant of the new lease to which the tenant has an automatic right. Even this can only be done under prescribed circumstances, for example the landlord's desire to occupy the premises himself or to demolish and redevelop the building. Duties of participants Duties of landlord The first duty of the landlord is to put the tenant in physical possession of the land at the outset of the lease (the English and majority rule, as opposed to the American rule which only requires the tenant be given legal possession, or the right to possess); the second is to provide the premises in a habitable condition—there is an implied warranty of habitability. If landlord violates either, the tenant can terminate the lease and move out, or stay on the premises, while continuing to pay rent, and sue the landlord for damages (or withhold rent and use breach of implied warranty of habitability as a defense when the landlord attempts to collect rent). The lease also includes an implied covenant of quiet enjoymentlandlord will not interfere with tenant's quiet enjoyment. This can be breached in three ways. Total eviction of the tenant through direct physical invasion by landlord. Partial evictionwhen the landlord keeps the tenant off part of the leased property (even locking a single room). Tenant can stay on the remaining property without paying any rent. Partial eviction by someone other than landlordwhere this occurs, rent is apportioned. If landlord claims to lease tenant an area of 1,000 square metres but 400 square metres of the area belongs to another person, tenant only has to pay 60% of the rent. Landlord's tort liability Under the common law, the landlord had no duties to the tenant to protect the tenant or the tenant's licensees and invitees, except in the following situations: Failure to disclose latent defects of which the landlord knows or has reason to know. Note that the landlord has no duty to repair, just to disclose. For a short-term lease (3 months or less) of a furnished dwelling, the tenants are treated as invitees, and the landlord is liable for defects even if the landlord neither knows nor should know of them. Common areas under landlord's control (e.g. hallways in an apartment building), if the landlord failed to use reasonable care