Mission and Pastoral Measure 2011

97 Power of Commissioners to determine questions relating to patronage

(1) Where it is necessary for the purposes of this Measure or any scheme or order made under it to find the registered patron of a benefice and it appears to the Commissioners that it is not possible or is not reasonably practicable to find that patron, the Commissioners may direct that the diocesan board of patronage shall be treated for those purposes as the registered patron of that benefice, and any such direction shall be conclusive for those purposes.

(2) The provisions of subsection (1) with respect to a person who cannot be found shall apply also with respect to a person as to whom the Commissioners are satisfied—

(a) that he or she is outside the United Kingdom and has not within the United Kingdom any representative authorised to act for him or her; and

(b) either that no address at which letters are likely to be delivered to him or her is known, or that a letter asking him or her to nominate such a representative has been written to him or her at his or her last known address but no reply has been received within a reasonable period.

(3) If at any time it appears to the Commissioners that the interest of any person in the patronage of a benefice is so small that for the purposes of section 46 or paragraph 1 of Schedule 3 it should be disregarded, they may determine his or her interest to be negligible and thereupon he or she may be treated for those purposes as having no interest in the patronage of the benefice.