Rent

Forms of rent charge of special interest are tithe rent charge (see TITHES), and the rent charges formerly used for the purpose of creating "faggot votes." The device was adopted of creating parliamentary voters by splitting up freehold interests into a number of rent charges of the annual value of 4os., so as to satisfy the freeholders' franchise. But such rent charges were rendered ineffective by the Representation of the People Act, 1884, s. 4, which enacted (subject to a saving for existing rights and an exception in favour of owners of tithe rent charge) that a man should not be entitled to be registered as a voter in respect of the ownership of any rent charge.

A rent charge reserved without power of distress is termed a rent-seck (reditus siccus) or "dry rent," from the absence of the power of distress. But, as power of distress for rents-seck was given by the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1730, the legal effect of such rents has been since the act the same as that of a rent charge.

Other Varieties of

Rent.—Rents of assize or quit rents are a relic of the old customary rents. They are presumed to have been established by usage, and cannot he increased or diminished. Provision was made in 1922 for the extinction after 1925 of quit rents and other manorial incidents (Law of Property Act, 1922, SS. 138, Fee farm rents are rents reserved on grants in fee. They, like quit rents, now occur only in manors, unless they existed be fore the statute of Quia Emptores was enacted or created by the Crown. A rent which is equivalent or nearly equivalent in amount to the full annual value of the land is a rack rent. As to ground rent, see GROUND RENT. A dead rent is a fixed annual sum paid by a person working a mine or quarry, in addition to royalties varying according to the amount of minerals taken.

The object of a dead rent is twofold—first, to provide a speci fied income on which the lessor can rely; secondly (and this is the more important reason), as a security that the mine will be worked, and worked with reasonable rapidity. Rents in kind still exist to a limited extent. All peppercorn, or nominal, rents seem to fall under this head. The object of the peppercorn rent is to secure the acknowledgment by the tenant of the landlord's right. In modern building leases a peppercorn rent is sometimes reserved as the rent for the first few years. Labour rents are represented by those cases, not unfrequent in agricultural leases, where the tenant is bound to render the landlord a certain amount of team work or other labour as a part of his rent.

As to the apportionment of rents, see APPORTIONMENT, and as to the rent of apartments, etc., see LODGER AND LODGINGS.

Payment of Rent.

Rent is due in the morning of the day appointed for payment, but a tenant is not in arrears until after midnight on that day. Rent made payable in advance by agree

ment between a landlord and his tenant is called forehand rent. It is not uncommon in letting a furnished house, or as to the last quarter of the term of a lease of unfurnished premises, to stipulate that the rent shall be paid in advance. As soon as such rent is payable under the agreement the landlord has the same rights in regard to it as he has in the case of ordinary rent. Where a cheque in payment of rent is lost in the course of transmission through the post, the loss falls on the tenant, unless the landlord has expressly or impliedly authorized it to be forwarded in that way : and the landlord's consent to take the risk of such trans mission will not be inferred from the fact that payments were ordinarily made in this manner in the dealings between the parties. A tenant may deduct from his rent (i.) the "landlord's property tax" (on the annual value of the premises for income tax pur poses), which is paid by the tenant, if the statute imposing the tax authorizes the deduction (which should be made from the rent next due after the payment) ; (ii.) taxes or rates which the land lord had undertaken to pay but had not paid, payment having thereupon been made by the tenant; (iii.) payments made by the tenant which ought to have been made by the landlord, e.g., rent due to a superior landlord; (iv.) compensation under the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1923 (s. 37), and Landlord and Tenant Act, 1927 (S. I I [2] ).

A

landlord's main remedy for non-payment of rent is distress (q.v.). Besides distress the landlord has his ordinary remedy by action. In addition, special statutory remedies are given in the case of tenants holding over after the expiration of their tenancy (see EJECTMENT). Under the Rent Restriction Acts, 1920-25, landlords of dwelling houses to which these statutes apply were prevented during their continuance from effectually raising the rents above specified limits, and except in certain cases from re covering possession on the termination of the tenancy. The act of 1920 expired in England on Dec. 25, 1927, and in Scotland on May 28, 1928. The provisions of Pt. II. of the act of 1923 con tinue in force for five years from the expiration of the act of 1920. (See further LANDLORD AND TENANT.) Under the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1927, the landlord of trade premises may offer a renewal of the tenancy at such rent as, fail ing agreement, the statutory tribunal may consider reasonable, as an alternative to compensation for improvements (s. 2 [1] [d]) or goodwill (s. 4 [1]). The tenant of such premises may also apply for a new lease at a rent similarly approved (s. 5).