A genealogy firm is embroiled in a new legal dispute with the Canterbury Diocesan board of finance over the ownership of a former school site in Kent.
In November 2000, the Court of Appeal ruled that genealogists Simon and Nathan Fraser, who specialise in locating next-of-kin inheritance cases, were not entitled to a share of money received by the board from the 1992 sale of Chartham School, Canterbury.
The Frasers and the board are now in dispute over another former school site, St Philip’s CoE Primary School, Melville Road, Maidstone, and the High Court has to decide a preliminary issue that is crucial to the Frasers’ case.
Lewison J is being asked to determine whether, as the board claims, the site “reverted” back to the board before 17 August 1975, that is 12 years prior to the Reverter of Sites Act 1987 coming into force. This would thwart the Frasers’ claim.
The board argues that the site reverted back to it on the basis that trusts upon which it had been conveyed had been breached in three ways. It claims that the school was being used to educate: (i) those who were not of the “poorer classes”; (ii) those resident outside of the parish of St Philip’s; and (iii) only children.
The Frasers claim that the admission of a few pupils from wealthier backgrounds and a small number from outside the parish did not constitute a breach, since it did not cause the site to cease to be used for the purpose for which it was granted, the education of poorer children in the parish.
They also claim that the distinction between children and adults is a “hopeless point”, because, in law, a trust “for the education of children and adults” does not require both children and adults to be educated, in much the same way as a trust for sick and injured children would not be breached if only sick and not injured children benefited.
The hearing continues.
Fraser v Canterbury Diocesan Board of Finance and another (Lewison J) 6 May 2003.
References: PLS News 7/5/03
