Marriage Act 1949

41 Registration of buildings

(1) Any proprietor or trustee of a separate building, which has been certified as required by law as a place of religious worship may apply to the superintendent registrar of the registration district in which the building is situated for the building to be registered for the solemnization of marriages therein.

(2) Any person making such an application as aforesaid shall deliver to the superintendent registrar a certificate, signed in duplicate by at least twenty householders, stating that the building has been used by them for at least one year immediately before the application as their usual place of public religious worship and that they desire that the building should be registered as aforesaid, and each certificate shall be countersigned by the proprietor or trustee by whom they are delivered.

(3) The superintendent registrar shall send both certificates delivered to him under the last foregoing subsection to the Registrar General who shall register the building in a book to be kept for that purpose in the General Register Office.

(4) The Registrar General shall endorse on both certificates sent to him as aforesaid the date of the registration, and shall keep one certificate with the records of the General Register Office and shall return the other certificate to the superintendent registrar who shall keep it with the records of his office.

(5) On the return of the certificate under the last foregoing subsection, the superintendent registrar shall—

(a) enter the date of the registration of the building in a book to be provided for that purpose by the Registrar General;

(b) give a certificate of the registration signed by him, on durable materials, to the proprietor or trustee by whom the certificates delivered to him under subsection (2) of this section were countersigned; and

(c) give public notice of the registration of the building by advertisement in some newspaper circulating in the county in which the building is situated and in the London Gazette.

(6) For every entry, certificate and notice made or given under the last foregoing subsection the superintendent registrar shall be entitled to receive, at the time of the delivery of the certificates under subsection (2) of this section, the sum of three pounds.

(7) For the purpose of being registered for the solemnization of marriages under this section, any building which has been used for one year immediately before registration for public religious worship as a Roman Catholic chapel exclusively shall be deemed to be a separate building, notwithstanding that it is under the same roof as another building, or forms part only of a building.