Who retains ownership of a private burial vault on church grounds? Charles Auld & Harrington examine a novel case
- Gaining title to land otherwise excluded from the title documents: an ecclesiastical law perspective.
- Gaining ownership of a burial vault by way of adverse possession.
In the 21st century, can ecclesiastical law concepts be used to gain title to land otherwise excluded from the title documents, and can a church gain ownership of a burial vault by adverse possession? In King and Blair v The Incumbent of the Benefice of Newburn and the Newcastle Diocesan Board of Finance [2019] UKUT 0176 (LC) the Upper Tribunal (UT) had to grapple with these issues, remarking at [18] that ‘there is no recorded authority which is directly determinative of the principal issue raised’. The vault in question lies within the church of Holy Trinity, Dalton, Northumberland, which had been built on land belonging to the local landowner, Edward Collingwood, taking advantage of the Church Building Acts 1818 to 1884.
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