Faculty refused for exhumation of cremated remains from a family grave in one part of the churchyard to a double plot for cremated remains in another part of the same churchyard.

Faculty granted for the exhumation of the cremated remains of three family members from inside a church which had been closed for public worship, and reinterment in a family grave in a local cemetery.

The Chancellor refused to grant a faculty for the exhumation of the mortal remains of his grandparents and great aunt, who died in 1921, 1951 a 1954 resepctively, in order that the remains might be cremated and scattered in Golders Green Cemetery, as the application was "far outside of the exceptions to the general and important rule relating to the finality of Christian burial set out in the leading case of Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299, Court of Arches."

The 16 months old child of Italian parents living in England died following a fall whilst the family were on holiday in the Netherlands. The child’s cremated remains were brought back to England and interred in a consecrated part of East Sheen Cemetery. It was always the parents’ intention to move back to Italy and they treated the interment as temporary until they could return to Italy and inter the child’s ashes there. They were not told that the ashes were interred in consecrated ground and that exhumation from consecrated ground would not be granted unless there were exceptional circumstances. If they had been informed about the consequences, the parents would not have had their child’s ashes interred in consecrated ground. Upon an application by the parents for exhumation before returning to live in Italy, the Chancellor considered that a mistake had been made which would allow an exception to the normal rule against exhumation and he therefore granted a faculty.

The petitioner applied for a faculty to authorise the exhumation of a relative and reinterment in an adjoining grave. The relative had reserved two plots, one for her sister and one for herself. Owing to a mistake, the relative was buried in her sister's grave. The Chancellor determined that the mistake justified the grant of a faculty for exhumation and reinterment.

The incumbent and churchwardens sought a faculty to authorise the repair of a section of collapsed wall between the churchyard and two adjoining properties. One of the adjoining owners objected on the ground that work should not be done without work on the roots of some adjacent trees. The Chancellor granted a faculty, being satisfied that the wall needed repairing. If there was a tree preservation order in place, which required a further consent from the local authority for removal of the trees (should that be required), then a further faculty may be needed. The Chancellor expressed the hope that the parties could resolve their differences regarding the trees.

There had been a faculty application to authorise the installation of telecommunications equipment at the church and the completion of a licence agreement between the Parochial Church Council and the telecommunications operator. The Chancellor had refused to grant a faculty. The petitioners appealed. The appeal was allowed. The court found that the Chancellor had unnecessarily given weight to the church's primary responsibility being mission, an argument which had not been put forward by the objectors, and had not given sufficient weight to the evidence in favour of the proposals, particularly that the Government had issued guidelines to planning authorities that planning consent should not be refused for telecommunications equipment on the grounds of arguments as to danger to human health, if installations complied with international guidelines.

The PCC arranged to sell at auction a painting of the Madonna and Child, by a German painter, Franz Ittenback (1813-1979) at a reserve of £3,000. It was sold for £20.000 to a dealer, who spent a considerable amount on restoring it before it came to the attention of the Archdeacon that the painting had been sold without the authority of a Faculty. The PCC then sought a Confirmatory Faculty. In a long judgment the Chancellor sets out the law relating to objects belonging to churches and the obligations of churchwardens, and explains that no title can pass when an object such as the painting is sold without the authority of a Faculty. The Church Buildings Council objected to the sale. The Chancellor determined that the reasons for granting a Confirmatory Faculty outweighed the reasons for not doing so.

The petitioner applied for a faculty for the exhumation and reinterment of a body buried (due to an administrative error of the burial authority) in a grave reserved for a member of his family, as part of a block of graves reserved for the family. The Chancellor refused to grant a faculty on the grounds that (a) the desire of the petitioner's family to keep family burials in a rectangular block was just a 'personal preference', which was outweighed by the distress which would be caused to the family of the deceased and the Christian theology of the permanence of burial (the burial authority were willing to grant an exclusive right of burial for the petitioner's family in a plot adjacent to the 'block'); and (b) there had been a delay of one year between the burial in the wrong grave and the lodging of a petition.

The Petitioner sought a faculty to authorise the exhumation of the body of his father from the cemetery at Bloxwich, the interment having taken place in 1985. The Petitioner proposed that his father's remains should be reburied in a recently opened cemetery at Strawberry Lane, Cheslyn Hay, which had been laid out on land which the deceased had formerly farmed. After considering Re Blagdon Cemetery and other judgments, the Chancellor concluded that "the fact that a new cemetery or the like is created after the interment in circumstances where that new cemetery is thought to be a more fitting resting place for the remains in question than the place where they are interred will not, save in the most extreme of cases, be capable of being a special circumstance justifying exhumation."