Quit rent, quit-rent, or quitrent is a tax or

land tax A land value tax (LVT) is a levy on the value of land without regard to buildings, personal property and other improvements. It is also known as a location value tax, a point valuation tax, a site valuation tax, split rate tax, or a site-value r ...

imposed on occupants of freehold or leased land in lieu of services to a higher landowning authority, usually a government or its

assigns An assignment is a legal term used in the context of the law of contract and of property. In both instances, assignment is the process e whereby a person, the ''assignor'', transfers rights or benefits to another, the ''assignee''.For the assig ...

. Under

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a wa ...

law, the payment of quit rent (Latin ''Quietus Redditus'', pl. ''Redditus Quieti'') freed the

tenant Tenant may refer to: Real estate *Tenant, the holder of a leasehold estate in real estate *Tenant-in-chief, in feudal land law *Tenement (law), the holder of a legal interest in real estate *Tenant farmer *Anchor tenant, one of the larger stores ...

of a holding from the obligation to perform such other services as were obligatory under feudal tenure, or freed the occupier of the land from the burden of having others use their own distinct rights that affected the land (e.g. hunting rights which would have hindered farming). Thus it was a payment for distinct rights that were connected with the full enjoyment of the land but not parcelled up in the ownership of the land. Formally it was a sort of buy-back rather than a tax. A tax can be varied by the taxer; and if not paid there are penalties that can be varied by the taxer without formal limit. In contrast the only sanction for not paying a feudal quit rent was that the alternative burdens would return. This imposed a ceiling on how much could be demanded in payment of a quit rent. Where the sanctions for non-compliance are limited in this way, a quit rent is a rent in form and name, and not a tax; where they are not so limited, a quit rent is a rent only in form and name, being rather a tax. The latter is the usual case today, as the former was in earlier times. In post-feudal times, quit rents have continued to be imposed by some governments, usually attached to land grants as a form of land tax. The quit rent system was used frequently by

colonial Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 a ...

governments in the British Empire. Many land grants in

colonial America The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European colonization of North America from the early 17th century until the incorporation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States after the Revolutionary War. In the ...

in the 17th and 18th centuries carried quit rent. Quit rents went on to be used in British colonies, protectorates, etc. in Asia and elsewhere in the 19th and 20th centuries. For example, in British North Borneo, Proclamation IX of 1902 made it a legal requirement for natives who claimed to own cultivated lands to take out separate land titles for themselves, charged at $2.00 per title with owners made to pay annual quit rent.Regina Lim
Federal-state relations in Sabah, Malaysia: the Berjaya administration 1976–85
page 28, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008, Some governments have now abolished the quit rent system and relieved those with a nominal quit rent obligation from the requirement to pay it, replacing quit rents with a uniform system of

. However, in other countries, such as Malaysia, quit rent remains an important means of raising revenue from landowners.

References

External links

*{{Cite NIE, wstitle=Quit Rent, short=x Renting Feudalism Land tenure

See also

References

External links