Section 26 Ecclesiastical property.

Where under this Part of this Act a document is required to be served on an owner of land, and the land is ecclesiastical property, a copy of the document shall be served on the F1Diocesan Board of Finance for the diocese in which the land is situated.

Any compensation payable under this Part of this Act to a person by virtue of his title to any interest in land shall, if the land is ecclesiastical property and if the interest is the fee simple in the land, be paid (where the fee simple is vested in any person other than the Diocesan Board of Finance for the diocese in which the land is situated) to F2it instead of to that person.

Any sums paid under the last foregoing subsection to the Diocesan Board of Finance for the diocese in which the land is situated with reference to any land shall, if the land is not consecrated, be applied by it for the purposes for which the proceeds of a sale by agreement of the fee simple in the land would be applicable under any enactment or Measure authorising such a sale or disposing of the proceeds of such a sale, and, if the land is consecrated, be applied by it F3as if the land had been sold under the Pastoral Measure 1983.

F4Where any ecclesiastical property is vested in the incumbent of a benefice which is vacant, it shall be treated—

as being vested in the Diocesan Board of Finance for the diocese in which the land is situated, and any notice to treat shall be served accordingly.

In this section the expression “ecclesiastical property” means land belonging to an ecclesiastical benefice of the Church of England, or being or forming part of a church subject to the jurisdiction of the bishop of any diocese of the Church of England or the site of a church so subject, or being or forming part of a burial ground so subject.