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Manorial rights are certain rights which were retained by lords of the manor in England and Wales when land became freehold in the early 20th century, and can include rights to mines and some minerals, sporting rights such as hunting, shooting and fishing, and rights to hold fairs and markets. In the past such rights were not required to be detailed on the register of title, but they remained overriding-that is they bound the owner of the affected land even though they may not have known about the rights. Changes made through the Land Registration Act 2002 sought to increase the transparency and knowledge of such rights by requiring that they be registered and removing their overriding status. This Act specified a deadline-October 2013-by which such rights should be registered to ensure they could not be lost.
A consequence of this provision was that a large number of claims to manorial rights were registered in the year preceding the deadline-around 90,000-which led to many landowners discovering for the first time that their properties were subject to rights owned by a third party. The lack of understanding of such rights, and the means by which the registration process was carried out and communicated, led to many of the affected landowners experiencing understandable concerns and anxieties. As a consequence we received representations from Members of Parliament on their constituents' behalf and individual members of the public affected by registrations of manorial rights made on their properties, most notably from landowners in Anglesey and Welwyn Garden City. These all called for the abolition of manorial rights and/or a review of the law in this respect. Following correspondence with the Government and the Law Commission it was clear to us that there was no desire on their part to address the current law related to manorial rights, and we therefore decided to launch this inquiry to instigate a debate on the current situation and inform any possible future review.
During the course of the inquiry we heard about considerable problems with the registration process, and in particular the notifications sent by the Land Registry to landowners, the burden of proof of the validity of claims, which we believe falls disproportionately on the landowner, and the use of unilateral notices to register manorial rights. However, we received little evidence of the negative impact upon landowners of the exercise of manorial rights in the present day.
We received considerable evidence from those opposed to the abolition of manorial rights who cited the real economic value that some manorial rights may have in certain cases. It is therefore understandable that many manorial rights holders responded to the new legislation by seeking to protect these rights, although we consider the situation whereby a claim to certain manorial rights can be made over areas of dense residential properties, where rights are unlikely to ever be exercised, is anomalous. Evidence also highlighted issues with the abolition of manorial rights, most notably regarding the human rights implications and consequential compensation issues. However, we do not believe that such issues are necessarily insurmountable, given there are lessons that can be drawn from elsewhere.
In light of the evidence received we consider that there are some obvious improvements that could be made to the existing process of registering manorial rights, not least in removing the use of unilateral notices as the primary means by which such rights should be registered and thus shifting the burden of proof towards those claiming manorial right. We also believe that there would be merit in further research being carried out, and data collected, into the prevalence, exercise, impact and value of manorial rights in England and Wales, given the paucity of information in this regard that came to light during the inquiry.
It was never our intention to pass judgment on whether or not manorial rights should be abolished, and we have not done so in this report. However, in addition to proposing improvements to the existing process of registration, we recommend that a review be carried out assessing whether the law related to manorial rights should be changed, including the question of whether all or some categories should be abolished, and how legislation could appropriately address compensation and human rights issues in such an event. We would expect the Law Commission to carry out this work, either as part of a future programme of law reform, or upon the specific request of the Government. It is also our view that such a review would need to be preceded by some consideration and work by the Government into the financial implications and provisions for compensation which would be associated with abolition of some or all manorial rights.
[N.B. In this report, Committee conclusions are in bold text, recommendations are in bold italics.]
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