Definition
Capable of being assessed, valued, or taxed according to a set standard or proportionate rate. The term carries two related but distinct uses in legal contexts:
1. Tax and assessment law: Property or income that is subject to taxation or assessment, or that may be evaluated and assigned a taxable value. A ratable estate is one liable to be rated — that is, valued for purposes of levying a tax or charge.
2. Proportionate distribution: A payment, allocation, or distribution made at a rate proportionate to some measure — such as time elapsed, share held, or value of interest. Ratable payments are payments scaled to a formula rather than paid in a flat amount.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An alternative form of "rateable" — capable of being rated or assessed.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Capable of being rated or set at a certain value; liable by law to taxation; made at a proportionate rate.
The common and legal meanings are closely aligned in the tax-assessment sense. The legal nuance worth noting is the second meaning: in distribution and apportionment contexts, "ratable" carries the specific technical sense of pro rata division among competing claimants or interests — a precision the common definition does not capture.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Ratable estate: Property subject to assessment for taxation purposes.
Ratable distribution: Division of assets or payments among claimants in proportion to their respective shares or claims, particularly relevant in insolvency and estate administration.
Ratable proportion: A fractional share computed by reference to a defined ratio, often appearing in insurance, debt, and trust instruments.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter "ratable" most frequently in two distinct bodies of law — taxation and insolvency — and conflating the two can distort meaning. In tax law, the term governs what property is assessable and at what value; in distribution law, it governs how scarce assets are divided among competing claimants. A court using "ratable" in an insolvency opinion means something functionally different from a legislature using it in a rating statute.
Historical sources, including Rapalje & Lawrence, treat the term incompletely. The fragment surviving in the available entry addresses distress law — specifically a lodger's exemption — and does not develop "ratable" as a term of art in either tax or distribution contexts. Researchers should not rely on this entry as a complete treatment.
The spelling variation matters for corpus searches. American sources overwhelmingly use "ratable"; British and Commonwealth sources (including older materials that influenced American law) use "rateable." A search confined to one spelling will miss relevant historical materials. This is especially significant when tracing rate and assessment law in jurisdictions that drew on English poor law and local rating statutes.
In insurance law, "ratable" appears in contribution clauses governing how co-insurers share a loss. The phrase "ratable proportion" in a policy is a term of art with a specific calculation method; it is not merely a synonym for "fair share."
Historical Dictionary Support
Webster's 1913 captures the core meanings accurately and usefully: assessment to value, liability to taxation, and proportionate payment. These three senses map directly onto the term's primary legal applications and confirm that the word had settled legal usage well before the twentieth century.
Rapalje & Lawrence, in the available fragment, touches on the distress context — the procedure by which a landlord seizes goods for unpaid rent — but the surviving text is incomplete and does not speak to "ratable" as a general term of art. The entry appears to have been part of a longer discussion of distress exemptions rather than a direct treatment of the word itself. Researchers should treat it as illustrative of one application, not as a comprehensive definition.
No significant divergence exists between the historical dictionaries on the basic meaning. The proportionate-distribution sense was well established in both American and English usage by the nineteenth century and appears consistently in chancery and equity materials addressing creditor rights.
Jurisdictional Note
American jurisdictions uniformly prefer the spelling "ratable." British and Commonwealth statutes and cases use "rateable," particularly in the context of local government rating and property taxation. The underlying legal concepts are parallel, but statutory language may differ significantly. Researchers working with pre-twentieth-century American materials that draw on English rating law should account for both spellings.