Art. 4704.Definitions

Rather than defining terms article by article, Chapter 1 closes with a single article gathering the meanings that carry through the rest of Title XI. Article 4704 defines lease, lessee, lessor, occupant, owner, and premises, and each definition reaches further than the ordinary landlord-tenant relationship might suggest.

Lease covers any oral or written lease and includes a sublease. Lessee reaches a sublessee, whether the person seeking to evict is a lessor or a sublessor, and includes an assignee of a lessee. Lessor likewise includes a sublessor, an assignee, or a transferee. These definitions make sure the eviction procedure works up and down a chain of leasing relationships, not only between an original landlord and an original tenant.

Occupant gets particular attention: it includes a sharecropper, a half hand, a day laborer, a former owner, and any person occupying property by permission or accommodation of the owner, a former owner, or another occupant. It expressly excludes a mineral lessee, an owner of a mineral servitude, or a lessee of the owner, whose rights come with protections a summary eviction procedure is not built to disturb. Owner, in turn, includes a lessee, letting a tenant use the eviction procedure against someone occupying under that tenant without a lease. Premises includes the land along with any buildings and improvements on it, whether leased by a tenant or possessed by an occupant.