RENTS of three different kinds may be noticed here. There is first the rent payable to a landlord under a lease (whatever the length of the term may be), or a written agreement for a lease or tenancy, or a verbal tenancy agreement. This is rent most usually met with in the ordinary cases of lessor and lessee and landlord and tenant, and is dealt with in this work in such articles as DISTRESS, LANDLORD AND TENANT, and LEASE. The two other kinds—quit rent and rentcharge—may be usefully treated in this article at some length.
A quit rent, or " chief rent," is a fixed rent payable by a freeholder of a manor, the rent being so-called because thereby the freeholder goes free of all the other services usually incident to a copyhold tenure. This rent is recoverable by distress. Its redemption by the freeholder, as well as the redemption of other perpetual rentcharges, is now made possible by section 45 of the Conveyancing Act, 1881, which runs to the following effect Where there is a quit rent, chief rent, rentcharge, or other annual sum issuing out of land (in this section referred to as the rent), the Copyhold any person interested therein, certify the amount of money in consideration whereof the rent may be redeemed.
(2) Where the person entitled to the rent is absolutely entitled thereto in fee simple in possession, or is empowered to dispose thereof absolutely, or to give an absolute discharge for the capital value thereof, the owner of the land, or any person interested therein, may, after serving one month's notice on the person entitled to the rent, pay or tender to that person the amount certified by the Commissioners.
(3) On proof to the Commissioners that payment or tender bas been so made, they shall certify that the rent is redeemed under this Act ; and that certificate shall be final and conclusive, and the land shall be thereby absolutely freed and discharged from the rent.
(4) Every requisition under this section shall be in writing; and every certificate under this section shall be in writiner sealed with the seal of the Commissioners.
(5) This section does not apply to tithe rentcharge, or to a rent reserved on a sale or lease, or to a rent made payable under a grant or licence for building purposes, or to any sum or payment issuing out of land not being perpetual.
(6) This section applies to rents payable at, or created after, the commence ment of this Act.
(7) This section does not extend to Ireland.
A rentcharge differs from a quit rent in that it does not depend for its creation and existence upon the copyhold relationship of lord and tenant, but upon an express grant in a deed. As usually met with, especially in the neighbourhoods of Manchester, 13ristol, Bath, and some other places, a rent charge is known as afeefilrin rent. lt is created by the freeholder of land granting it in fee to another person subject to the payment to the grantor, his heirs and assigns, of a specified rent, the grantee covenanting to duly pay the rent. The position of the grantor, however, as regards his remedies for the performance of the grantee's covenants is decidedly inferior to that of a lessor upon a lease for a long 999 years. For example, the covenants by the grantee to build, repair, and insure, &c., do not run as to the burden of them with the land nor as to the benefit of theni with the rent, and consequently an assignee of the rent cannot sue, nor can an assignee of the land be sued on them. And again, though the grantee confers upon the grantor a power of' re-entry upon the land in case of' default in payment of the rent, yet in fact this power terminates directly the grantor assigns the rent to another person. These grants at fee farm are generally used in con nection with the development of land by building thereon, but are, on the above considerations, decidedly inferior in their efficacy to a procedure by way of leases. A purchaser of a fee-farm rent has not, therefore, so good a security as the purchaser of a rent reserved by a lease ; and more than that, he has no reversion to the land and buildings themselves as a lessor's assignee would have. Small rentcharges are also frequently found vested in and payable to charities. From the point of view of non-payment of a rentcharge, and the recovery thereof, the rights of its owner may be considered under two heads : first, his remedies under section 44 of' the Conveyancing Act ; secondly, his right to sue the legal owner in possession of the land for payment. Than these he has no other rights.