absentee landlord

absentee landlord A landowner not normally resident on the estate from which he derived income and which was generally managed through an agent. While some landlords cared for the welfare of their tenants, others engaged in such practices as the issue of very short leases, which gave unscrupulous agents opportunities to raise rents frequently and evict anyone unable to pay. Abuses were common in pre-revolutionary France and in Ireland, where successive confiscations had led to Irish estates falling into English hands.