Land Law

The Lord of the Manor?

The rights, privileges and problems of buying your way

into the landed gentry

How much nobility can you buy?

• Many companies offer to sell the titles ‘Lord, Lady, Sir, Duke, Baron’ and others.

• In reality such titles cannot legally be sold.

• Only the disputed ‘feudal titles’ are semi-legitimate.

How to become Lord of the Manor

• Manorial Lordships are still treated as land by law, and are conveyed in a similar way

• Typically auctioned

• Avoid websites selling titles, however

The costs…

• Lordships can cost between £6,000 and £170,000

• Obligations – duty to maintain land

• Fraud is rife

…and the benefits

• Right to use ‘style’ of “Lord of the Manor of …” after your name

• Sometimes rights – hunting, mineral extraction, and many others.

• Very rarely anything of monetary value

Lord Marcher of Trelleck

• Owns 60 ‘manors’• Has demanded

£45,000 from unfortunate villagers.

• Such access fees initially capped, now ruled illegal.

• Raised the sale of titles to national prominence

Mark Roberts, Lord Marcher of Trelleck

Lordships on the market• Bermondsey, London

£40,000 • Smallburgh Catts, Norf

£11,000 • Stretton Sugwas, £8,500 • Bunshill, £8,000 • Plumpton, E Suss £7,500 • Earls Dallinghoo, Suff £7,000 • Dunclent in Stone, Worcs

£7,000 • Hamstall Ridware, Staffs

£6,750 • Great Raveley, Cambs £6,000

Equity & Trust Law

Pensions

Final Salary Pension Schemes;

Is it all bad news?

History and Past Performance• Final Salary Pension scheme closures

have accelerated from around 2000 when equity markets fell

• 2002; 70 per cent of schemes

were still open to new members• 2006; 33 per cent of schemes

were still open to new members • This decline has been closely

followed by the nation as it

threatens the future of

today’s workers

Slowdown In Closures• 2007; Percentage of schemes

open to new members only dropped 2 points to 31%

• The annual survey showed that 2/3 of schemes expected to remain open to new members over the next 5 years

• The same survey also showed that over 90% of schemes reported that they were fully funded

Increased Gov’t Backing• Pension Reforms 2012• Gordon Brown’s last budget as

Chancellor allocated £2 billion for pension shortfalls

• Peter Hain, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has added another £900 million to that pot

• That £2.9 billion equates to enhanced benefits equal to 90 per cent of what the 129,000, who’s Final Salary Pension scheme failed, had been due

Shift from Final-Salary Schemes• Despite slowdown in closures

the number of final salary schemes open to new members is at an all-time low of 31%

• 40% of schemes are expected to change the way existing members accrue benefits in the next five years

• Shift away from final-salary plans by private companies has forced employees into often uncertain money-purchase schemes