The New International Encyclopædia/Quit Rent

QUIT RENT. Originally, a fixed rent due from a freehold tenant to his feudal superior, so called because received in lieu of all other services. It was a common feature of socage tenure and came in course of time to designate any fixed rent due from a socage tenant. Quit rents were protected from abolition by the provisions of the Statute of Military Tenures. It is probable, however, that they have become entirely obsolete in the United States, excepting in Pennsylvania, where they survive to a limited extent, though there is no legal objection to their survival elsewhere in the States formerly subject to socage tenure. Quit rents still exist to a considerable extent in England, though they have largely been redeemed under the provisions of the Conveyancing Act of 1881. Wherever they exist, however (unless due to the Crown in England or to the State in America), they are of great antiquity, as they always involve a relation of dependent tenure such as could not arise in England after the Statute Quia Emptores (1290) nor in this country after the Revolution. Consult the authorities referred to under Real Property.