The Gazette 1919-20

23

The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.

AUGUST, 1919.]

" Rack Rent." In the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878 (41 and 42 Vict., C. 52, 1, 2) a " Rack Rent" is defined as " a Rent which is not less " than two-thirds of the full net annual va'lue of " the property out of which the rent arises as " ascertained under the Acts relating to the " valuation of rateable property in Ireland." If this definition could be utilised in the interpre tation of the Genral Order under the Solicitors' Remuneration Act, obviously the matter would be one of supreme simplicity, but clearly a defin ition made for the purposes of one Act is not adaptable to another Act which is not even in pari materia with the former Act. Accordingly the meaning of " Rack Rent " is at large and has to be sought elsewhere. There are few judicial decisions for guidance, and the recent case of In re Sawyer and Withall, Solicitors, reported 1919 Weekly Notes 196 is therefore interesting and instructive. The facts of that case were a Lease was made of property in London for a term of 61 years, subject to a rent of £525 per annum : it con- : tained covenants on the part of the lessee to pay rent, land tax, sewer rates, and to do all repairs and insure the premises. It was ad- j mittedly a long lease and the Solicitors for the | lessor contended that it was a lease not at a I Rack Rent, as there were undertakings to put the premises in repair. The Solicitors relied on the Irish cases of exparte Connolly to Sheridan (1900) 1, I.R. 1, and In re Hogan's Estate (1894) 1 I.R., 503. Sargant J. held that the lease was a lease at a Rack Rent, and there fore the costs were fixed under Table I of the General Order, and that the rent reserved in a lease might be a Rack Rent whether the rent reserved had been calculated on the basis of the obligations as to rates and taxes,^ and the obligations as to repairs being wholly borne by the tenant, or wholly by the landlord, or partly by the one and partly by the other.

Recent Decision. Solicitors' Remuneration Act, 1881. "Rack Rent." Prior to 1881 the Solicitors' charges in all matters of conveyancing were regulated by the length of the document prepared regardless of the consideration or the importance of the matters involved. One of the principal objects aimed at by the Conveyancing Act of 1881 was the curtailment of the length of deeds by the use of appropriate terms carrying the implication of long covenants that were formerly properly and necessarily set out in detail in every deed. At the same time the Solicitors' Remuneration Act, 1881, was passed with the object of in troducing a short and simple method of deter mining the costs of ordinary conveyancing matters, based on the amount of the consider ation money involved. As regards the Costs of Leases by the General Order made in pursuance of the Act, two separate tables of fees are provided. The first table provides for the costs of leases at Rack Rent other than a Mining Lease or a Lease for Building Purposes. The second table deals with the Costs of Conveyances in fee or for a freehold estate reserving rent, or Building Leases reserving rent or other long leases not at a Rack Rent. The fees payable under the second table are very much larger than those payable under the first. The tables are not exhaustive, nor are they mutually exclusive, and it is possible to find in practice cases that do not fall under either schedule, and then the only scale of costs under which apparently the Solicitors' remun eration can be determined is the old scale in existence prior to the Solicitors' Remuneration Act as altered by Schedule II in the General Order made under the Act. Questions of the greatest difficulty are frequently presented in regard to the words 44 and 45 Vict., C. 44. Costs of Lease: