Acquisition of Land Can Have Unforeseen Consequences

A family who inherited land were also held to have inherited an obscure ancient liability, which ended up costing them dearly, after a recent decision by the House of Lords.

When presented with a bill for £95,000 for repairing the chancel of their local church, the owners of “glebe land” were, needless to say, unimpressed. They went to court arguing that the Parochial Church Council (PCC), which sent them the bill, was a public authority and therefore must abide by section 6 of the 1998 Human Rights Act. Their argument was that the bill amounted to a form of taxation levied in a discriminatory fashion on owners of glebe land.

Whilst the Court of Appeal was amenable, the Lords were not. In their judgment, a PCC is not a public authority for the purposes of section 6 of the Human Rights Act. They deemed that the liability for the chancel repairs derives from the ownership of the land to which the obligation is attached, rather than being an obligation imposed by the PCC.

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