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 at common law to this form of rent. Copyhold rents and rents reserved on lease fall into this class.

Rent Charge.—A rent charge is a grant of an annual sum payable out of lands in which the grantor has an estate. It may be in fee, in tail, for life-the most common form-or for years. It must be created by deed or will, and may be either at common law or under the Statute of Uses (1536). The grantor has no reversion, and the grantee has at common law no power of distress, though such power may be given him by the instrument creating the rent charge. The Statute of Uses (1536) gave a power of distress for a rent charge created under the statute. The Conveyancing Act 1881, § 44, has given a power of distress for a sum due on any rent charge which is twenty-one days in arrear. By § 45 a power of redemption of certain perpetual rents in the nature of rent charges is given to the owner of the land out of which the rent issues. Rent charges granted since April 26th, 1855, otherwise than by marriage settlement or will for a life or lives or for any estate determinable on a life or lives must, in order to bind lands against purchasers, mortgagees or creditors, be registered in the Land Registry in Lincoln’s Inn Fields (judgments Act 1855 and Land Charges Act 1900). In certain other cases it is also necessary to register rent charges, for instance, under the Improvement of Land Act 1864 and the Land Transfer Acts 1875 and 1897. Rent charges are barred by non-payment or non-acknowledgment for twelve years. The period of limitation for the arrears of such rent is six years.

Various Forms of Rent Charge.—Forms of rent charge of special interest are tithe rent charge (see ), 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 40s., so as to satisfy the freeholders' franchise. But such rent charges are now rendered ineffective by the Representation of the People Act 1884, § 4, which enacts (subject to a saving for existing rights and an exception in favour of owners of tithe rent charge) that a man shall 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 1736, the legal effect of such rents has been since the act the same as that of a rent charge.

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 agreement 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 rentis payable under the agreement the landlord has the same rights in regard to it as he has in the case of ordinary rent. If a tenant pays his rent before the day on which it is due, he runs the risk of being called upon in certain circumstances to pay it over again. Such a payment is an advance to the landlord, subject to an agreement that, when the rent becomes due, the advance shall be treated as a fulfilment of the tenant’s obligation to pay rent. The payment is, therefore, generally speaking, a defence to an action by the landlord or his heirs. But if the landlord mortgages his reversion, either before or after the advance, the assignee will, by giving notice to the tenant, before the proper rent-day, to pay rent to him, become entitled to the rent then falling due. Payment by cheque is conditional payment only, and if the cheque is dishonoured the original obligation revives. 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 transmission 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 purposes), 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 landlord 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 Acts 1883–1900.

Remedies for Non-payment of Rent.—A landlord’s main remedy for non-payment of rent is distress (Lat. distringere, to draw asunder, detain, occupy), i.e. the right to seize all goods found upon the demised premises, whether those of the tenant or of a stranger, except goods specially privileged, and to detain and, if need be, to sell them, in satisfaction of his claim. The requisites of a valid distress are these: (a) There must be “ a certain and proper rent,” i.e. rent due in respect of an actual tenancy of corporeal hereditaments: (b) the rent must be in arrear; (c) there must be a reversion in the person dis training; and (d) there must be goods on the premises liable to be dis trained.