Settlement

(1) Any deed or any order, or decree, of the Court of Chancery of England, or of Belize or other jurisdiction or authority, or instrument what-ever, whether voluntary or gratuitous, or upon any good or valuable consideration other than a bona fide pecuniary consideration, whereby any certain and definite sum or sums of money (whether charged or chargeable on lands or other hereditaments or not or to be laid out in the purchase of lands or other hereditaments or not and if charged or chargeable on lands or other hereditaments, whether to be raised at all events or not) or whereby any lands, tenements, rents, annuities, or other property, real or personal, or any right, title, interest, or claim into, out of, or upon, any lands, tenements, rents, annuities, or other property, shall be settled, or agreed to be settled upon, or for the benefit of any person or persons, either in possession or reversion, either absolutely or conditionally or contingently, or for life, or other partial interest, or in any other manner whatever, there shall be paid for every fifty dollars or part of fifty dollars of the amount or value of the property settled or agreed to be settled a duty of seventy-five cents. (2) There shall be paid on every fifty dollars or part of fifty dollars of the value of the property or the amount of the consideration given or at any time to be given, whichever is the greater, on every conveyance or other transfer of property, whether by sale, exchange or gift, other than a sale or transfer of land, a duty of two dollars and fifty cents. 43 (3) The following are exempt from the provisions of this section– (a) bonds, mortgages, and other securities operating as settlements, if chargeable with the ad valorem duties on bonds and mortgages hereinbefore granted; (b) deeds, or of apportionments, in execution of powers given by any previous settlement, deed or will to, or in favour of persons, specially named or described as the object of such powers; (c) deeds, or instruments merely declaring the trusts of any money, pursuant to any previous settlement (in respect of which ad valorem settlement duty has been paid) deed or will, or for securing any gifts or dispositions made by any previous settlement, (in respect of which ad valorem settlement duty has been paid) deed or will; (d) wills, testaments, and testamentary instruments and dispositions mortis causa, of every description; (e) where several instruments are executed for effecting the settlement of the same property, and the ad valorem duty chargeable in respect of the settlement of the property exceeds two dollars, one only of the instruments is to be charged with the ad valorem duties; or (f) where a settlement is made in pursuance of a previous agreement, upon which ad valorem settlement duty exceeding two dollars has been paid in respect of any property, the 44 [CAP. 64 settlement is not to be charged with ad valorem duty in respect of the same duty. (4) On the instruments not chargeable with ad valorem duty under sub-section (3) (e) and (f), there shall be paid the duty of one dollar.