Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JOHN LAUDER OF FOUNTAINHALL. Subject_2 This week I sat in the Outer-House, and so the observes are the fewer.
Sale of Yeoman of Pittencreif's Lands
Date: 11 June 1700
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In the action of sale of Yeoman of Pittencreif's lands, it occurred to be argued among the Lords, what price should be put upon the teinds, seeing he had no standing right thereto, but only kindliness; and it has been oft designed that they should be consolidated with the stock. Where one has an heritable right to their teinds, or tacks and prorogations, for many nineteen years yet to run, the Lords use to value them at fourteen or fifteen years' purchase, which is somewhat lower than the price of the stock, because they are liable to augmentations of stipends and other inconveniences; whereas the stock is commonly put at eighteen years' purchase, or 2500 merks for the chalder, where the lands hold blench or feu of the King. But if there be no right at all to the teinds in the debtor's person, then the Lords are in use to put five years' purchase on them as their price, because the heritor may buy them for nine years, by Act of Parliament, which two conjoined make up the fourteen years' purchase above-mentioned.
2do, It fell to be considered, what should be modified for house and yards, which appeared, by the probation, to be in tolerable case; and what value should be put on the coal, seeing the witnesses deponed, Though there was no going coal on the ground, yet there was a coal for the working, in some parts four, in others six or eight feet thick.
The Lords thought this might be as well valued as the stool of a wood which had been lately cut; and therefore modified 5000 merks as the worth of the coal, and other 5000 merks for the house and yards, and other accommodations, including the kain-hens, carriages, and other small casualties.
3tio, As to the promulgation at the six adjacent parish-kirks, it was started which would be the most ewest in this case, the lands lying at Dumfermling: Whether all the six churches were to be taken within the shire of Fife, on the north side of the river of Forth, where some of them would be five or six miles distant from the lands; or if the churches of Queensferry, Dalmeny, Cramond, &c. which lie on the south side of the Forth, may not be called more adjacent, there being only two miles of sea; or if the interjection of this broad river and arm of the sea makes such a discontiguity that they are not to be accounted most adjacent. Yet many inclined to think it safest to execute even at these churches likewise; and there can be little reason given why water, though a different element, should hinder continuity more than conjunction by contiguity of land, whose surface is more unequal, does.
