False titles of nobility

Several websites and Internet vendors on websites such as eBay, "sell" Scottish lairdships along with small plots of land, known as souvenir plots. However, they create no legal right of ownership or legal right of heraldry in Scots law.

The Court of the Lord Lyon (the heraldic court tasked with the award and regulation of heraldry) considers souvenir plot titles to be meaningless[1] as the registration of numerous "lairds" of a single estate would pose too great an administrative burden. The opinion of the Lord Lyon has been criticised as the UK government allows the usage of Manorial Titles in British passports of the form: "THE HOLDER IS THE LORD OF THE MANOR/LAIRD OF [X]"[Brackets added].[8] However, as a matter of Scots property law, souvenir plots cannot competently create a real right of ownership in Scots law. The Land Registration (Scotland) Act 2012 forbids the registration of deeds relating to souvenir plots in the Land Register of Scotland.[9] This means that the Buyer obtains no legal right of or to ownership of the souvenir plot in any event,[10] so the evidence threshold required by HM Passport Office to use the Manorial Title will be unlikely to be met. Evidence of ownership of property would typically be the production of a Title Sheet to the property or a formal and valid disposition, which the souvenir plot documents are unlikely to contain.

Richard Bridgeman, 7th Earl of Bradford, estimates these sellers having an income of US$2,918,520 per acre (about US$7.2 million per hectare) of poor land, which he suggests could probably be purchased for about US$100.[11] Some of these sellers enclose with the invalid deed a coat of arms; this is not authorised by the Lord Lyon, and so it is unlawful in Scotland to use it. The most recent advice from the Lord Lyon specifically states that the award of a coat of arms is not appropriate to the owner of a souvenir plot, such as sold in these schemes.[12]

While the Lord Lyon, whose primary responsibility is the registration of arms in Scotland, has taken it upon himself to play a role in identifying the rightful heir or heiress to an aristocratic title in Scotland (see Peerage law), he has no official authority over the use of titles.

The title lord of the manor is a feudal title of ownership and is legally capable of sale. The owner of a Lordship of the Manor is known as [personal name], Lord/Lady of the Manor of [place name].[13] According to the style guide Debrett's a person owning a title of Lord of the Manor (or its Scottish equivalent - Laird) is properly titled "The Much Honoured" and simply referring to them as Mr and Miss is "incorrect".[14]

There are three elements to a manor:

• lordship of the manor,
• manorial land,
• manorial rights.

These three elements may exist separately or be combined; however the lordship of a manor may be held in moieties and may not be subdivided; this is prohibited by the Statute of Quia Emptores preventing subinfeudation. However the second and third elements can be subdivided.[15]

In many cases the title lord of the manor may no longer have any land or rights. In such cases the title is known as an "incorporeal hereditament".[15] Before the Land Registration Act 2002 it was possible to register lordship titles; most did not seek to register.[15] Since 13 October 2003 one cannot apply for first registration of a title of a manor, however dealings in previously registered titles remain subject to compulsory registration with HM Land Registry.[16] A frequent criticism of the lordships sold at auction is that statutory declarations are relied upon to substitute for missing historical deeds and transfer documents which would, in some cases, demonstrate that the manor in question either no longer exists, can no longer be identified definitively or is not available for sale.

According to John Martin Robinson, Maltravers Herald Extraordinary and co-author of The Oxford Guide to Heraldry, "Lordship of this or that manor is no more a title than Landlord of The Dog and Duck" ("The Dog and Duck" being a stereotypical name for a pub, with "landlord" being the usual term for someone who runs such an establishment).[17] However, the journal Justice of the Peace & Local Government Law advises that the position is unclear as to whether a lordship of the manor is a title of honour or a dignity, as this is yet to be tested by the courts.[18] Technically, lords of manors are barons, or freemen; however, they do not use the term as a title. John Selden, in Titles of Honour, wrote in 1672, "The word Baro (Latin for "baron") hath been also so much communicated, that not only all Lords of Mannors have been from ancient time, and are at this day called sometimes Barons (as in the stile of their Court Barons, which is Curia Baronis, &c. And I have read hors de son Barony in a barr to an Avowry for hors de son fee) But also the Judges of the Exchequer have it from antient time fixed on them."[19]

Some companies claim to be selling manorial lordships when in fact they are actually selling nothing more than a trademark. For this reason, careful legal advice should be sought before entering into any transaction purporting to be selling a lordship of a manor.

Some companies sell individuals a title when in fact they do no more than offer them the facility to change their name. Such an individual adopts the purported title, e.g. "Sir" or "Lord", as a forename rather than receiving any formal title. The British Passport Office is aware of this practice and will place an official observation in the individual's passport stating that the purported title is a name rather than the person's title.[20]

Titles were hereditary for all legal descendants in the male line, male and female; primogeniture was not usual. Austria, however, legally abolished its nobility and hereditary titles after World War I and bans the use of noble titles and nobiliary particles.

Finland became a republic in 1917, and issue of new titles and substantial privileges of the estates of the realm were abolished by 1920. However, the nobility was not abolished, and they retain exclusivity to their surnames by personal name laws. Claiming a false title of nobility for purposes of marriage remains a criminal offense.[21]

Although France is a Republic since 1870, titles are protected by law.[22] The Departement of Justice maintains a register of titles and can deliver decrees of investiture to heirs of titles whose succession has been recognized. This investiture is needed to use legally a title, but many members of former noble families use so-called "courtesy title" without much sanction.

German royalty and nobility bore hereditary titles, noble titles being heritable to all legitimate descendants in the male line, male and female: primogeniture was not usual except in the Kingdom of Prussia. Although the German nobility lost its hereditary prerogatives, including rank, style and honorifics following the fall of the German Empire in 1918, the nobility was not abolished per se, but the hereditary titles of its members were converted into parts of the individuals' surnames. Persons legally adopted by nobles with titular surnames acquire thereby the right to use the surname, but did not become members of the nobility under the monarchy nor heirs to the family's traditional titles, nor do they do so post-monarchy.

Some vendors of fake titles claim to arrange for the customer to acquire an Italian title based on adoption or even through notarial acts ceding the titles to the customer. In Italy, where titles of nobility have not been officially recognised since 1948, and where nobility by feudal tenure was abolished in most regions during the years immediately prior to 1820, an adoptive child cannot succeed to his adoptive parent's title, and no legal act can serve to renounce a hereditary title. Claims to sell titles of nobility linked to ownership of a certain estate or castle are based on equally misguided misconceptions. No Italian publication or record, not even the Consulta Araldica's official registry (the Libro d'Oro now retained at the Central Archives of the State in Rome), is a truly complete record of Italy's nobles and armigers.

A number of legitimate titles recognised in the pre-unitary Italian states (Two Sicilies, Tuscany, Parma, Modena, Papal State), as well as the Republic of San Marino, were not recognised in the Kingdom of Italy between 1860 and 1948. In most cases these were small baronies, minor lordships (signorie) or untitled ennoblements (patrizi and nobili). In connection with this, some Sicilian titles could devolve to female heiresses in the absence of close male kin, and in a few instances there are claimants (in female lines) in Spain as well as Italy, the former looking to Two Sicilies (pre 1860) legislation and the latter citing Italian (post 1860) law. Most of the parallel claims (usually by Spanish citizens) were made after 1948, when the Consulta Araldica (Italy's heraldic authority) was suspended by the Italian constitution, which abolished recognition of titles of nobility.

Recognition of Norwegian noble titles was gradually abolished by the Nobility Law of 1821. Persons who in 1821 possessed such titles, were allowed to keep them for their lifetimes.

There exists no law that prohibits private use of noble titles. Such privately adopted titles lack official recognition.

Noble names enjoy no particular legal protection. In accordance with the Name Law's paragraph 3, any family name with 200 or fewer bearers is protected and may not, without all bearers' acceptance, be adopted by another.[23]

Unlike other European states, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and its predecessor states did not have a noble class divided into dukes, counts, barons, etc. The privileged noble/gentleman class, the szlachta, were all theoretically equal to each other and made up 6–12% of the population. The problem of false claims to szlachta was widespread in the 16th century, Hieronim Nekanda Trepka denouncing such fakes in Liber generationis plebeanorium.

After the Partitions of Poland (1772–95) the Polish state ceased to exist. Some Polish notables received titles of Russian nobility, Prussian nobility or Austrian nobility.

Because there was no Polish state and a wide Polish diaspora, it became easy for Poles to claim to be exiled nobility, whether they had szlachta ancestors or not. The "fake Polish count" became a stock character in 19th- and 20th-century literature.

Fiction featuring fake Polish nobility includes: the novels The Idiot,[24] The Green Face[25] and The Whispering City,[26] and the films Roberta (1935)[27] and Victor/Victoria.

Real-life people who falsely claimed to be Polish nobles include:

• Christoph Bienenfeld (Baron Hönig von Bienenfeld)[28]
• Roger de la Burde[29]
• Marek and Andrew Kasperski[30]
• Casimir Markievicz, who married the Irish leader Constance Gore-Booth. She continued to be known as "Countess Markievicz"[31]
• Paweł Strzelecki, although born into the szlachta, was called a "Count" in Australia, but it is not clear if he used the title himself.[32]