CHAPTER XX. _TITHE ACT, 1891._ [54 VICT. CH. VIII.] ARRANGEMENT OF SECTIONS. Section. 1. Liability of owner to pay tithe rentcharge, and modification of contracts with tenants. 2. Recovery of tithe rentcharge through County Court. 3. Rules. 4. Lands occupied rent free, etc. 5. Restrictions as to costs. 6. Rating of owner of tithe rentcharge. 7. Power of appeal. 8. Remission of tithe rentcharge when exceeding two-thirds annual value of land. 9. Definitions. 10. Commencement and application of Act and saving. 11. Repeal. 12. Extent of Act and short titles. SCHEDULE. CHAPTER VIII. An Act to make better provision for the Recovery of Tithe Rentcharge in England and Wales. [54 Vict. c. viii., 26th March, 1891.] Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: _Liability of owner to pay tithe rentcharge, and modification of contracts with tenants._ I.—(1) Tithe rentcharge as defined by this Act issuing out of any lands shall be payable by the owner of the lands, notwithstanding any contract between him and the occupier of such lands, and any contract made between an occupier and owner of lands, after the passing of this Act, for the payment of the tithe rentcharge by the occupier shall be void. (2) Where the occupier is liable under any contract made before the passing of this Act to pay the tithe rentcharge, then he shall cease to be bound by that part of his contract, but he shall be liable to pay to the owner such sum as the owner has properly paid on account of the tithe rentcharge which such occupier is liable under his said contract to pay, exclusive of any costs incurred or paid by the owner in respect of such tithe rentcharge, and every receipt given for such sum shall state expressly that the sum is paid in respect of that tithe rentcharge: Provided that where the lands, out of which any tithe rentcharge issues, are occupied by several occupiers who have contracted to pay the tithe rentcharge, any of such occupiers shall be liable only to pay such proportion of the sum paid by the owner of the lands on account of that tithe rentcharge as the rateable value of the lands occupied by him bears to the rateable value of the whole of the lands occupied by such occupiers. (3) Such sum shall be recoverable from the occupier by distress in like manner as is provided by sections eighty-one and eighty-five of the Act of the session of the sixth and seventh years of the reign of King William the Fourth, chapter seventy-one, and the enactments amending those sections, and not otherwise. _Recovery of tithe rentcharge through County Court._