Coal Act 1938

13 Right of freeholder of coal, who carries on coalmining business, to lease thereof

(1) A person carrying on the business of coalmining immediately before the vesting date, who is then beneficially entitled (whether or not subject to a mortgage) to the entire fee simple in coal or a mine of coal that is not subject at that date to any coal-mining lease, shall have the right, if he has made an application in writing in that behalf to the Commission before the vesting date, to a grant from the Commission of a coalmining lease comprising any coal or mine of coal specified in his application to which he is so entitled and any property and rights that vest in the Commission therewith :

Provided that—

(a) the right under this section to a grant of a lease of any coal or mine shall be conditional upon the applicant's satisfying the requirements of the Third Schedule to this Act as to the registration of particulars thereof under the Registration Act and the making of a claim for compensation for the fee simple therein, and to his complying with the provisions of that Schedule that impose upon him any duty in connection with the valuation of the fee simple therein; and

(b) a person shall not be entitled under this section to a lease the grant of which would interfere with the exercise of a right granted by a working facilities order, or with the use or exercise under a coal-mining lease of any property or right comprised therein.

(2) A lease granted under this section shall be granted for such a term, commencing on the vesting date, as the person entitled to the lease may require, not being longer as regards the coal comprised therein than may be reasonably requisite for enabling that coal to be worked out, and subject to conditions with respect to rent and otherwise which shall not in any case be more onerous to the lessee than the conditions customary in the district or, where there are no customary conditions or the customary conditions are not applicable, than the conditions to which a person not entitled to the benefit of this section might reasonably have been expected to agree; and the conditions of the lease shall, where the person entitled thereto acquired the fee simple in the coal before the tenth day of November nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, be so framed as to secure that his financial position in respect of his business of working the coal shall neither be adversely affected nor improved by the fact that, in lieu of his remaining entitled to the fee simple in the coal, compensation of the amount ascertained under section seven of this Act becomes payable in respect thereof, and he becomes liable to a periodical payment of rent of an amount fixed by reference to the time requisite for enabling the coal to be worked out, and ceases to be liable as proprietor thereof for the payment of mineral rights duty and royalties welfare levy.

(3) The provisions of the Fifth Schedule to this Act shall have effect with respect to the granting of leases under this section, and the substitution or variation of securities in the case of premises that were subject to a mortgage.

(4) No stamp duty shall be chargeable upon a lease granted, and expressed to be granted under this section, or upon a substituted security, or an instrument making provision for the variation of a subsisting security, made and expressed to be made pursuant to the provisions of the Fifth Schedule to this Act.