The laws in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic recognize and regulate with extreme precision the possession of the lordship of the manor. Sadly, on the web there are many scams and fraudulent misrepresentations that sell “manorial lordships” whether as a “resurrected” title or in the supposed form of “title” to a square foot of land in Scotland or England. As a result, there are many people who falsely purport to be a “Lord” or “Laird”. Unscrupulous sellers supposedly lay claim to extinct or vacant manors and “revive” them for sale. To be legitimate a manorial lordship must be traceable, its history can be reconstructed and must be uninterrupted, in a chain of titles that reaches the lord of today, as in the case of the Hunningham lordship. Once a manor’s “title” or rights cease to have a living owner, they go extinct or revert to the Crown. They are not “vacant” or in abeyance “waiting for a new owner” like any abandoned object for a road. They only exist as long as they pass from hand to hand without a break. They cannot be “resurrected” or “revived”. At best they revert to the UK’s “Treasury Solicitor BV” (bona vacantia) which then has the sole right to sell.
These scams convey no rights or “title”, as the sellers have no right to sell them in the first place, and instead simply sell you a worthless trademark or meaningless name change kit dressed up in deliberately obscuring language. It may even be accompanied with publication in the “London Gazette”, however this does not provide any legal status or legitimacy, since they are placed by the seller in the “London Gazette” simply as a paid advertisement.
In the case of the infamous “souvenir plots”, a manorial title cannot be subdivided nor shared by more than one person. In reality, these schemes and scams convey nothing and only enrich the fraudsters at the expense of the vain and gullible.
Many of the original Lordships of the Manor granted by William the Conqueror almost a thousand years ago have disappeared, reverted to the Crown, or have become lost through the inability to trace an unbroken chain of title back through successive owners to the original grantees. The Lordship of the Manor of Hunningham in County Warwickshire is exceptional because it has an unbroken chain of owners, proven by historical scientific investigations, based on official documents, which begins in 1086 and reaches the current lord.