The issue, arising from the disestablishment of the Welsh Church, was whether tithe rent charges temporally vested in the Welsh Commissioners pending their transfer to the University of Wales while temporarily vested, subjected the Welsh Commissioners to chancel repair liability. If so, Government stock needed to be issued to the appropriate Welsh authority pursuant to the Tithe Act 1936. Held The Welsh Commissioners, so long as they held the tithe rent-charges, were lay impropriators and accordingly under a chancel repair liability. Tithe rent charges representing rectorial property of the parish, were held by the Dean and Chapter of Gloucester. Other tithe rent-charges were held by a limited company. Plymouth Estates Ltd plainly and admittedly remain liable for chancel repair. The obligation of a rector to repair the chancel was ‘an obligation imposed by common law’. If the tithe rent charge gets into the hands of a lay impropriator at anytime it is held subject to the liability to repair’ and ‘impropriation exists where the property is in lay hands.’
Judges:
Viscount Simon LC, Lord Wright, Lord Porter
Citations:
[1944] AC 228
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Parochial Church Council of the Parish of Aston Cantlow and Wilmcote with Billesley, Warwickshire v Wallbank and another HL 26-Jun-2003
Parish Councils are Hybrid Public Authorities
The owners of glebe land were called upon as lay rectors to contribute to the cost of repairs to the local church. They argued that the claim was unlawful by section 6 of the 1998 Act as an act by a public authority incompatible with a Convention . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Ecclesiastical, Land
Updated: 16 June 2022; Ref: scu.184048
