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Ecclesiastical Dilapidations:

A FEW WORDS ON THE LAW THEREOF;

WITH

SUGGESTIONS FOR ITS AMENDMENT.

BY

EDWARD G. BRUTON,

ARCHITECT; FELLOW OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS, AND
SURVEYOR TO THE DEAN AND CHAPTER OF CHRIST CHURCH,

AND ALL SOULS COLLEGE IN OXFORD.

OXFORD and LONDON:

JOHN HENRY AND JAMES PARKER.

1865.

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PREFACE.

'HESE "few words" are prepared for the in

THE

formation of those who desire to have some general notion of the Law of Ecclesiastical Dilapidations, and with the object of giving them some definite idea of the broad principle which governs the question and severs it from the simple one of "tenantable repairs," with which most persons are more or less familiar. In the Introduction I have attempted to impress upon Incumbents accepting a benefice, and upon the representatives of deceased Incumbents, the importance of selecting properly qualified persons to assess Clerical Dilapidations; and have also ventured to examine a Bill introduced into the Upper House in 1861, and made some suggestions of how the Law on the subject might be amended.

The cases of "Mason v. Lambert" and "Martin and another v. Roe," have not been given before

in any treatise on dilapidations or fixtures that I have been able to meet with. Gibbons, in his work on "Dilapidations and Fixtures," refers to "Mason v. Roe" in his Addenda only, as a case decided while his work was going through the press.

Oxford, 1865.

INTRODUCTION.

A

MONG the many important matters that

press upon incumbents when accepting the charge of a parish, there are few requiring so much caution, and none likely to cause such pecuniary loss, as the condition of parsonage houses they are found in all stages of repair and decay, and it is the extent to which decay may have subjected them which becomes so serious a question for the incumbent. It matters not in whose incumbency the house may fall into decay; at any moment an incumbent may be required to restore to its original condition that 'which he possibly found nearly worn out. “The obligation to keep and leave his dwelling-house, &c. in thorough repair is absolute and unqualified. He is liable not merely for the dilapidations which the premises have sustained during his own incumbency, but for those which have occurred in the time of his predecessors." How important, then, it becomes that he shall recover from his prede

a Gibbons, a "Treatise on the Law of Dilapidations and Nuisances," 8vo. Lond., 1849.

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