A tenant already in occupation of premises, especially when there is a change of owner.
〈英〉（尤指换了房东后的）原租户，老租户
Example sentencesExamples
The company has bought the house, but failed to evict the sitting tenant.
We are taking legal action to evict a sitting tenant.
As a sitting tenant for 40-years they should have had first opportunity to buy the land from the council.
Other criteria to consider include, whether the property is affected by the probate process, if it is freehold or leasehold, whether there are sitting tenants, or whether there are any restrictive covenants attached to the property.
Now landlords are looking for any excuse to get rid of those sitting tenants.
Part of the ground floor has a sitting tenant with a rent review due in January of next year.
At last the leadership of the lost tribe has passed from the residents of the Big House to the sitting tenants on what's left of the estate.
Many sitting tenants who had been occupying council and mine houses have been afforded an opportunity to buy the houses.
There is no ‘substantial discount’, but a house sold with sitting tenants may not receive as high a price as one without.
A sitting tenant cannot gain by site renewal, but only faces eviction.
The Belwards wanted their Yorkshire Dales house so badly, the idea of living cheek by jowl with sitting tenants did not put them off, says Caroline Brannigan
Some sales were also agreed with sitting tenants.
The defendant, at the time of the transfer, was a sitting tenant of Poplar and it was intended that she would be treated no better and no worse than if she remained a tenant of Tower Hamlets.