Rent (Agriculture) Act 1976

12 Provisional rents

(1) This section applies where a rent is not registered for a dwelling-house which is subject to a statutory tenancy.

(2) If the rent payable for any period of the statutory tenancy would be less than the rent based on rateable value, it may be increased up to the amount of that rent by a notice of increase served by the landlord on the tenant.

(3) The notice shall specify the amount of the rent based on rateable value, and set out the landlord's calculation of that amount.

(4) The notice shall also specify the date from which the notice is to take effect, which shall not be earlier than four weeks before service of the notice, and not at a time when an agreement under section 11 of this Act is in force.

(5) If the notice takes effect from the termination of an agreement under section 11 of this Act, it shall state that fact, and specify the rent payable, or last payable, under that agreement.

(6) If a notice is served under this section at a time when an agreement under section 11 of this Act is in force, and the date stated in the notice as that from which it is to take effect is—

(a) a date after service of the notice, and

(b) a date as at which the landlord could by notice served with the first-mentioned notice terminate the agreement,

the first-mentioned notice shall operate as a notice to terminate the agreement as at that date.

(7) Where a rent is registered for the dwelling-house at any time after notice is served, as from the date from which the registration takes effect the rent payable in accordance with the notice shall not exceed the weekly or other periodical equivalent of the amount of the rent so registered.

(8) If the rent payable in accordance with the notice exceeds the limit imposed by subsection (7) above, the amount of the excess shall be irrecoverable from the tenant.

(9) In this section—

(a) "rent based on rateable value" means the weekly or other periodical equivalent of an annual amount equal to the prescribed multiple of the rateable value of the dwelling-house, and

(b) the " prescribed multiple " is 1.5, or such other number (whole or with a fraction) as the Secretary of State may by order prescribe.

(10) An order made under subsection (9) above—

(a) may contain such transitional and other supplemental and incidental provisions as appear to the Secretary of State expedient,

(b) may be varied or revoked by a subsequent order so made, and

(c) shall be contained in a statutory instrument subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament

(11) The date as at which the rateable value is to be determined for the purposes of this section, and for the purposes of any agreement made under section 11 of this Act, shall be the date on which the notice is served, or as the case may be the date when the agreement was made.

(12) If there is no separate rateable value for the dwelling-house the rateable value shall be ascertained by a proper apportionment or aggregation of the rateable value or values of the relevant hereditaments; and until the rateable value is so ascertained references in this section to the amount of the rent based on rateable value shall be construed as references to the amount of the rent based on the landlord's estimate of that value.

(13) Any question as to the proper apportionment or aggregation under subsection (12) above shall be determined by the county court, and the decision of the county court shall be final.