Buying and Selling
| Author | Christopher Jessel |
| Pages | 433-444 |
Chapter 26
Buying and Selling
26.1 THE MARKET IN MANORS
In the 1980s a market developed in lordships. Manors (as distinct from their lands and revenues) had been bought and sold for years. It seems from Beaumont v Jeffery
Most property is valued by reference to its income yield or, if it is a building, to its construction cost. If a manor has any income at all it will be, at most, a few pence from rents of assize and have no buildings. Its only basis for value is demand, and that depends on the number of buyers and the money available to them. After 1990 a decline in the economy was reflected in property values. Prices of houses, offices and farmland fell and manors could not be sold at any price. Although the market in real property revived, manors did not boom to the same extent. By 1994 a West Country manor in a small village might cost £4,000. A well-known manor in a commuter town near London could be £10,000 and in 1996 Wimbledon was sold for £171,000.
1 [1925] 1 Ch 1.
2 The Times, 10 December 1988, p 26.
3 The Times, 30 November 1996, Supp, p 11.
434 The Law of the Manor
£10,000. If there is historic interest or competition between two or more buyers, that could raise the price. If it is one of several manors within a village it might be less valuable. A local council may be prepared to pay something to acquire the manor of a town, although with constraints on spending this could be seen as a waste of council taxpayers’ money. Sales of honours, comprising several manors, are rare and can also attract a premium.
Some manors may have negative value. For example, some may be subject to a liability to chancel repairs – although this would be unusual since the liability normally attaches either to land or to the lay rectory. If a manor includes waste which attracts travellers whom the lord has the responsibility to evict, or is used as an unlawful tip which the lord is responsible for clearing, this would incur expense without any return.
Some manors may have been bought under a misapprehension. A buyer should be aware that an English manor is simply a right of property; it does not confer a title or the right to be called ‘Lord X’ or ‘Lady Y’. The Home Office authorises the owner of a lordship to include on his passport the words ‘The holder is also known as lord of the manor of …’.
The process of selling and buying a manor is based on that of land. The following account assumes familiarity with that process and considers the special issues which apply to manors. What follows is an ideal. The research and careful consideration of documents takes time and expertise and is therefore expensive. If a manor is to be sold for as little as £4000 neither seller nor buyer will wish to spend half that again on professional fees. In practice therefore there is a tendency to reduce the formalities to a minimum and use standard forms and procedures. This may be risky in that each manor is unique and has its own appurtenances and burdens. The risks can be potentially serious for a seller who believes that he has simply disposed of a title of historic interest but no other value, only to find that the buyer claims to have bought roadside verges controlling access to homes and fields, or even whole fields or houses, in addition to common land, ponds or copyhold minerals. Much depend on the precise wording of the conveyance and of any preceding contract or sale catalogue.
4 Home Office Guidance on Observations in passports (7 February 2012).
26.2 AGENTS
Manors are unusual items and it is best to seek advice from a specialist, such as a surveyor who is familiar with the problems and the market. Such a specialist will approach known owners of manors, investigate the history, advise on whether to sell at auction or advertise the manor like a house, and generally do all that a selling agent of land will do. Other surveyors may principally handle country estates but may also have expertise in associated rights such as lordships. Regrettably there are also some in the business who hold themselves out as having skills they do not possess, which can lead to problems, notably selling titles the purported seller does not own or even non-existent manors.
An agent who deals in land has to comply with the rules laid down in the Estates Agents Act 1979 and the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991. Section 1 of the 1979 Act applies to things done in the course of a business on behalf of clients who wish to dispose of or acquire an interest in land. The issue whether a manor is land for the general purposes of the law is considered in 27.6 but whether or not that is so, if a statute provides a special definition then then those provisions will override the general law for the purposes of that Act. Section 2 of the 1979 Act defines land as a legal estate in fee simple or a lease which has a capital value. As explained in 22.7 a manor is held for a legal estate in fee simple. It may also be held on lease, although that is unusual. It follows that even though a manor may not be land for general purposes it would be land within the meaning of the 1979 Act. If the matter came up for decision in court the judge would consider the purpose of the Act, which is to protect members of the public from being exploited by unscrupulous dealers in property. The buyer of a manor is entitled to protection in the same way as the buyer of a house.
The Act requires an agent to comply with certain standards concerning information, terms of sale, deposits and so forth. Even if a court were to conclude that a manor is not ‘land’, the Act represents good practice and an agent advising on such a sale will observe its terms just as much as if he was selling a field or a wood. The 1979 Act is supplemented by the Property Misdescriptions...
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