Do I have a Lease or Licence?

[charleswj]

Can someone tell me whether I have a lease or a licence? The arrangement with my landlord is this:

We are living in a self-contained basement flat and our landlord lives above us. The landlord's house and our flat have different doors/entrances. The landlord pays for our council tax and our heating. Our agreemnt states that we are "paying guests" rather than "tenants". In the agreement the landlord has said that they reserve the right to check the electricty meters with out warning. Having said that, we have said that they can't come in a couple of times (when my wife has been in the shower) and they have gone away and come back at a different arranged time. Also, when showing prospective tenants around they have asked our permission if they can come into the flat and when we have said no and put our foot down they have had to arrange for another time.

We pay rent each month and the period of the agreement is for 6 months and rolling after that.

I know that to have a lease you need "exclusive possession". Considering that we have told our landlord whe they can or cannot enter and they have not kicked up a fuss, could this mean we have a tenancy.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[jeffrey]

Are the two bits purpose-built flats or a house converted into flats?

[charleswj]

Jeffery

Thank you for your reply. I thik that it is a house where the basement was converted into a self contained flat.
It is a victorian house and I suspect it has always two different staircases, one for the top house and another for the bottom flat.

Thanks