15.Section 5 provides that references in other enactments to tenancies and to connected expressions will cover private residential tenancies, unless it appears from the context that a particular reference is not intended to cover private residential tenancies.
16.At common law it is a cardinal feature of a tenancy that it has an “ish” (i.e. a termination date). As a private residential tenancy will not have an ish, there may (but for section 5) have been doubt as to whether a reference to a “tenancy” in another Act or instrument included a private residential tenancy. Similarly, section 4 of the Act allows an arrangement to be treated as giving rise to a private residential tenancy even although no rent is payable. Such an arrangement would not be a tenancy as traditionally understood, and so references to tenancies in other enactments may not otherwise have covered private residential tenancies under which no rent is payable.
Structure and Summary of the Act Extended meaning of tenancy and related expressions in other enactments