Section 23 Redemption of annuities and life interest of ecclesiastical persons.

In the event of a representative corporate body, herein-after referred to as " the representative body of the said Church," being constituted in pursuance of this Act to represent the said Church, any archbishop, bishop, or person holding any such benefice or cathedral preferment as aforesaid, or any curate entitled to an annuity under this Act, may after the first day of January one thousand eight hundred and seventy-one apply to the Commissioners to commute his annuity and the value of his life interest, if any, in any ecclesiastical property held, by him in pursuance of this Act, exclusive of any income derived from pew rents and burial fees, for a capital sum ; and the Commissioners, if satisfied that such annuity and life interest is unincumbered, or, if incumbered, that the incumbrancers consent to the commutation, and that the said representative body assent to such commutation, and also, in the case of a curate, that the incumbent (if any) from whose income the salary of such curate has been deducted as aforesaid assents, shall cause the then present value of such annuity and also of such life interest, exclusive as aforesaid, to be estimated, and shall pay the amount of such estimated value to the representative body of the said Church charged with the payment of the annuity in respect of which the capital sum is paid, so long as the annuitant requires such payment to be made, but with power to the representative body of the said Church to make such arrangements in respect of the commuted value of the annuity with the annuitant, and as to the disposal of such portion thereof as shall after such arrangements be applicable to Church purposes, as shall to such body seem fit; and upon such capital sum being paid, the annuity of such applicant shall cease, and all the estate and interest of the said applicant in any such ecclesiastical property as aforesaid shall vest in the

Any person having a life interest in ecclesiastical property in pursuance of this Act, although not the recipient of an annuity, shall be deemed to be an annuitant for the purposes of this section, and such life interest may be valued and commuted accordingly; provided that the value of the life interest in any ecclesiastical property of the said Church shall include the benefit (if any) derived from fines paid on the renewal of leases, on an average of fourteen years preceding the first of January one thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine ; and the Commissioners shall at any time between the first day of January one thousand eight hundred and seventy-one and the first day of January one thousand eight hundred and seventy-three, but not afterwards, if it appears to them, as respects any diocese or united dioceses in Ireland, as the case may he, or as respects any Protestant nonconforming body or communion, that not less than three fourths of the whole number of ecclesiastical persons in such diocese or united dioceses, or of the whole number of the ministers of such body or communion authorized to commute under this Act, hare commuted or agreed to commute their life interests, pay in addition to the monies otherwise payable by them a sum equal to twelve pounds in the hundred on the commutation money payable in respect of each life interest, such addition to be disposed of in the same manner as the commutation money in respect of which it is added.