16Transference of liability for owners' rates and consequential reduction of rents
(1)In the year first commencing after the passing of this Act and in every subsequent year every rate levied by a rating authority shall be payable by occupiers only, and any reference in any enactment or statutory order to a rate or a portion of a rate payable by owners shall be construed accordingly.
(2)On and after the commencement of the year first commencing after the passing of this Act.—
(a)the rents payable under leases of lands and heritages;
(b)the net rents and standard rents of dwelling-houses to which the Rent and Mortgage Interest Restrictions Acts, 1920 to 1939, apply ;
(c)the amount of the rent or, as the case may be, the maximum amount of the rent fixed, determined or approved in respect of any dwelling-house by or in pursuance of any enactment specified in paragraph 10 of the Third Schedule to this Act;
shall be reduced in accordance with the provisions of the said Schedule.
(3)Nothing in this section shall affect any right of a rating authority under any provision of the House Letting and Rating (Scotland) Acts, 1911 and 1920, or of the Act of 1947 or any other enactment, to recover the rates levied in respect of any lands and heritages from the owner thereof or the right of such owner to recover the same from the occupier or from the rating authority.