Tithe Act 1936

17 Definition of " owner " in relation to land.

(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, the person who is to be deemed for the purposes of this Act to be the owner of land shall be—

(a) the estate owner in respect of the fee simple thereof, unless it is subject to a long lease at a rent less than a rack rent; or

(b) if the land is subject to a long lease at a rent less than a rack rent, the estate owner in respect of the term.

(2) Where land is subject both to a head lease and to one or more original or derivative underleases each of which is a long lease at a rent less than a rack rent, the foregoing subsection shall have effect as if that one of the terms thereby created on which the other or others is or are reversionary were alone subsisting.

(3) In this section—

• " lease " includes an original or derivative underlease, and an agreement for a lease or underlease where the right to have the lease or underlease granted is subsisting, but does not include a mortgage;

• " long lease " means a lease granted for a term of more than fourteen years;

• " estate owner " has the same meaning as in the Law of Property Act, 1925, so, however, that in relation to such an agreement as aforesaid that expression means the person entitled to have vested in him the legal term agreed to be created;

• " rack rent " means a rent which is not less than two-thirds of the full net annual value of the property out of which the rent arises, and the full net annual value shall be taken to be the rent at which the property might reasonably be expected to let from year to year, free from all usual tenant's rates and taxes, and deducting therefrom the probable average annual cost of the repairs, insurance and other expenses (if any) necessary to maintain the property in a state to command such rent.

(4) Where the estate owner, who by virtue of the foregoing provisions of this section would be deemed to be the owner of any land, is the official trustee of charity lands or other trustee on or for charitable, ecclesiastical or public trusts or purposes not entitled to act in the trust, or the Public Trustee holding in circumstances in which he is not entitled to act in the trust, references in this Act to the owner of the land in relation to any action required or authorised to be taken by or against the owner shall be construed as references—

(a) in the case of a trustee on or for charitable, ecclesiastical or public trusts or purposes, to the managing trustees or committee of management; and

(b) in the case of the Public Trustee, to the person in receipt of the rent incident to the Public Trustee's estate, or, if there is no rent incident thereto, to the person in occupation of the land.

(5) Where under section nine of the [15 & 16 Geo. 5. c. 23.] Administration of Estates Act, 1925, the estate of a person who died intestate is vested in the Probate Judge, that judge shall not be deemed to be the owner of any land comprised in the estate for the purpose of any action required or authorised by this Act to be taken by or against the owner of the land, but upon administration being granted the administrator shall be deemed for those purposes to have been the owner thereof as from the date of the death.

(6) For the purposes of this Act—

(a) land in the ownership of two or more persons holding as joint tenants shall be deemed to be in the ownership of a single owner;

(b) where a person owns a part of the land in respect of which an annuity is charged in one capacity and another part thereof in a different capacity, those parts shall be deemed to be in different ownership and the land to be in the ownership of two or more owners.

(7) Where, by virtue of a contract entered into before the commencement of this Act, a person would have been entitled to an indemnity from another person in respect of the recovery from the first mentioned person of a sum due on any payment date on account of a tithe rentcharge if the rentcharge had not been extinguished by this Act, the first mentioned person shall be entitled to the like indemnity from that other person in respect of the recovery from the first mentioned person of an instalment due on that payment date of an annuity charged in respect of any land as being land out of which the rentcharge issued, or of a substituted annuity charged on an apportionment of such an annuity.