ANNUITY, in the law of England, is the right to the yearly payment of a certain sum of money, which is charged upon the person or personal estate of the individual bound to pay it. If it is charged upon real estate, the burden is called a rent, or rent-charge, and not an A. An A. may be created for a term of years, or for the life or lives of any per sons named, or in perpetuity; and in the last case the A. is reckoned among incorporeal hereditaments; because, although the security is personal only, yet the A. may descend in the same manner as real estate. In 1854, the old statutes relating to annuities were repealed by 17 and 18 Vict. c. 90, and enrollment in chancery of annuity deeds is no longer necessary to give them validity. But by another statute of 18 and 19 Viet. c. 15, s. 12, any A. or rent-charge granted after 1855, otherwise than by marriage settlement for one or more life or lives, or for any term of years or greater estate, determinable on one or more life or lives, shall not affect any lands, tenements, or hereditaments as to purchasers, mortgagees, or creditors, unless and until a memorandum or minute of the name, place of abode, title, trade, or profession of the person whose estate is intended to bee affected thereby, and the date of the deed, bond, instrument, or assurance whereby the A. or rent-charge is granted, and the Annual sum or sums to be paid, shall be left with the senior master of the common pleas at Westminster, who enters the particulars in at book of alphabetical names. A fee of 2s. 6d. is paid to the officer; and any person may-search the register for a fee of is. And when the A. is satisfied, and ceases to affect thedands, a memorandum is in like manner entered in this register (23 and 24 Vict. c. 115,'s. 2). But this act does not require the registry of annuities or rent-charges given by will.
Many persons who have a small capital, and are desirous of obtaining the largest life income, may buy an A. from an insurance office, and government grants these in con nection with the post-office.
An important feature of the law relating to annuities is, that they are considered as accruing from day to day, so that, whatever be the term or terms of payment, whether _yearly, half yearly, quarterly, or monthly, whenever the annuitant dies, the payment of the counted up to the day of the death, and the same remedy exists for recovering payment 'of the intervening days between the terms, as if the termly payment had then arrived.
A large number of annuities are created and kept alive by statutes relating to the public stocks, which are nothing else but annuities, not payable out of real estate, but granted to the holder and his heirs, and transferable by a short and easy method. The stocks in are merely rights to receive certain annuities by dividends as they become due,-subject to the right of the government to redeem such annuities on payment of a stipulated sum.
In Scotch law, an A. as such, may be charged on real estate as well as on personalty. In that system, it has been simply defined to be a right to a yearly payment in money; and it may be created either by the payment of the sum of money in the form of a purchase, or alt may be secured over land, in which case the creditor, in the event of olefault. °Phis .A., may attach the land charged, claiming in his action for recovery a capital •cum out of the land, sufficient to produce an annual interest equal to the A., which annual interest is paid, until the expiration of the A., when the capital sum is restored to the debtor. The instrument by which, in Scotland, the A. is con stituted in either of the above forms, is called a bond of A. •, and before the repeal of the usury Jaws ,(by a recent statute, 17 and 18 Viet. c. 90), this. form of deed was frequently resorted to as a means of securing loans where a high of interest was charged; and the same practice prevailed in England. But the last-mentioned act readers all such expedients now unnecessary.
a local impost for the payment of the salaries of the established clergy of the city of Edinburgh. It was first established on a limited scale by an act of the year 1661; and was extended in its sphere of operation by an act of the legislature as lately as 1809. It amounted at one time to 6 per cent on the rents of houses and shops within the royalty. It was a peculiarity of this tax that the members of " the College of Justice," including the lawyer class generally, enjoyed an exemption from it, as a relic of an ancient privilege by which they were induced to reside and hold the courts of law in Edinburgh. The tax was reduced in 1860; and, under an act passed in 1870, it was redeemed by payment of £56,500 by the corporation to the Edinburgh ecclesiastical commissioners.