Rent-service may be discharged. in various ways. If the tenant be evicted from the lands demised to him, he is discharged from payment of the rent ; and if the lessor purchase the lessee's interest, the rent is also discharged. The lessor may release a part of the rent-sea-vice, without releasing the whole.
If the person entitled to the rent-service purchases part of the interest in the laud in respect of which rent is due, the rent-service is apportioned according to the value of all the land, and accordingly the tenant is discharged from payment of rent in respect of the part pur chased. The person entitled to the reversion may also grant his interest in part of it, and the rent will be apportioned between him and his grantee ; for the interest in the reversion is of a divieiblo nature, and the rent follows the reversion. If the lessee should be evicted out of part of the lands, there will also be an apportionment. Before the late alterations of the law, when the moiety of a rever sion was extended on an °legit, the rent was apportioned, and the lessor consequently retained leaf of it. If a widow is entitled to dower of a reversion, she is also entitled to one-third of the rent re served upon a lease for years made by her husband.
At common law, if a tenant for life died before the rent became due, which was reserved on a lease that determined by tho death of the tenant fur life, his personal representatives could not claim an appoint ment of the rent, nor could the reversioner or remainderman claim much portion as accrued due during the life of the tenant for life. But such an apportionment W1L9 given to the personal representatives by stat. 11 Gee. II. c. 10, s. 15. The Act 4 & 5 Will IV. c. 22, extends the provisions of this Act to rents reserved on leases that determine m the death of the persons who make them, though they are not strictly tenants for life, and on leases of lands held pup meter pie; and my the same Act all rents-service reserves] on any lease by a tenant in be or for any life interest or under any power, and granted after tho taming of this Act, and all rents-charge and other rents, annuities, &c., payable under instruments executed, or (being a will) coming nto operation after the passing of the Act, shall be apportioned, and a woportionable part thereof, from the last time of payment to the day )f the death of the party interested therein, paid to the personal
.epresentativea of such party.
A rent-charge is a rent granted out of laud either at common law or sy the Statute of Uses, with a power of distress for tho recovery of he rent. Such rents may be created by the owner of the land who stains the property of it ; and they may also be reserved on the lienation of the land. These rents differ from rent-service in not icing connected with tenure, and the remedy by distress is therefore lot an incident to rentecharges, but IA muted by tho same instrument illicit creates the rent-charge. If no power of distress is given, the rent is a rent-seek. Rent-charge may be created either by deed or by will. Sometimes, by the terms of the grant, the grantee of a rent charge is empowered to enter on the hind and satisfy himself for all arrears out of the profits of the land. When a rent-charge is created under the Statute of Uses (ss. 4, 5) with a power of distress and entry upon the Land in case of arrear, the person to whom the rent-charge is given obtains the legal estate in the rent-charge, with all the remedies for its recovery, as he would by a direct grant of the rent-charge ; and the same instrument (lease and release) which creates the rent-charge may also make a settlement of the lands charged with the rent. In this way in a marriage settlement a rent-charge may be provided for the wife's jointure.
An estate in a rent-charge may be either in fee simple, or in fee tail, for lives or for years, according to the terms of the original limitation. A rent-charge of inheritance is real estate, and descendible to the heir ; but a payment that is due belongs to the person representative. There may also be an estate in fee simple in a rent-service created before the Statute of Quia Emptores. A rent-charge in fee simple is subject to curtesy and dower; and also a rent-charge in tail. But if a rent charge be created and granted to a man and the heirs of his body, his surviving wife will not be entitled to dower if the husband dies without issue. Until the Act 3 & 4 Will IV. c. 106, a woman was not entitled to dower out of a rent-charge, unless her husband had the legal estate in it. A rent-charge may be limited by way of remainder ; and a new rent-charge may be created to commence at a future time.