Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 MANSE.
Subject_2 SECT. II.

Who are entitled to a manse. Who are liable to build and repair a manse. Minister's claim for house rent.

Mr Thomas Robertson
v.
The Earl of Roseberry

Date: 28 July 1788
Case No. No 25.

Presbyteries, though they may authorise the repairing or rebuilding of manses, have no power to enlarge them.

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After Mr Robertson was settled as minister in the parish of Dalmeny, his manse was built from the foundation; but though this was done with his entire approbation, it was neither completed according to the plan proposed by the presbytery, nor afterwards approved of by them.

At the distance of some years, Mr Robertson, finding, from the increase of his family, that the manse was not sufficiently large, made a new application to the presbytery, who, besides some trifling alterations, directed a kitchen to be built adjoining to the house. Of these proceedings the Earl of Roseberry, a considerable heritor in the parish, complained to the Court of Session by a bill of suspension; when Mr Robertson

Pleaded; It was in the power of the heritors of this parish, effectually to preclude any demand that the minister might be inclined to make for altering or enlarging his manse; and this either by adopting the plan suggested by the presbytery, and afterwards bringing sufficient evidence of the work being properly executed, or by building a manse, and then requiring a visitation of the presbytery, who, if no objection occurred to them, must have reported the sufficiency of the whole. But as neither of these expedients were fallen upon, it must still be competent for the incumbent to require such alterations as the state of his family, or other circumstances, render necessary; 21st February 1786, The Heritors of Cairney contra the Moderator and other Members of the Presbytery of Strathbogie, No 24. p. 8514.

Answered; For the decent and comfortable accommodation of parochial ministers, the law has authorised presbyteries, in case of any negligence or unwillingness on the part of the heritors, to direct the rebuilding or reparation of manses, as the circumstances of the case may require. But there is not the least room to imagine, that it was intended to empower ministers, from time to time, to demand such alterations as-might be thought necessary for their peculiar exigencies. Besides rendering the burden on the landholders infinitely more heavy than is at all requisite, this would open a door for continual disputes between ministers and their parishioners, to the diminution of the respect due to that class of men, and consequently extremely hurtful to their general usefulness. In the case, accordingly, of the Minister of Ceres contra the Heritors, where such a demand as the present was made, it was, with great unanimity, disallowed by the Court.

The Lords suspended the letters simpliciter.

Reporter, Lord Dunsinnan. Act. Hope. Alt. Honyman. Clerk, Sinclair. Fol. Dic. v. 3. p. 399. Fac. Col. No 39. p. 64.