Chancel Repair Liability

[JonCris]

It only applies to C of E & if the property is disposed of the Chancel Repair liability ceases.

 

As for paying the £47.85 is it worth for a speedy sale, or would you rather argue over it & probably delay matters?

[propsol]

there was a comment above in relation to a policy only being for 25 years. As already pointed out, the danger time for chancel repair will end after October 2013 as chancel repair liabilities will cease to be what's called an overriding interest at that stage.

 

Your conveyancer or solicitor should be routinely doing chancel repair liability searches as they are potentially negligent if they do not. There is still a degree of lack of knowledge on this, even within the profession.

 

There is an expectation (but no legal obligation) that a seller will fund the insurance premium required to cover the buyer and their mortgagee and indeed their successors (future buyers). The £45 policy quoted above sounds cheap and probably only covers the buyers. Far better to have successors covered too as otherwise this point will come up again if you sell before 2013 and you will be asked to fund the policy at that stage. It is of course possible that the policies will get more expensive if the Church atively starts registering its interests.

 

Finally, make sure that you keep the policy documentation safe!

[JonCris]

there was a comment above in relation to a policy only being for 25 years. As already pointed out, the danger time for chancel repair will end after October 2013 as chancel repair liabilities will cease to be what's called an overriding interest at that stage.

 

Your conveyancer or solicitor should be routinely doing chancel repair liability searches as they are potentially negligent if they do not. There is still a degree of lack of knowledge on this, even within the profession.

 

There is an expectation (but no legal obligation) that a seller will fund the insurance premium required to cover the buyer and their mortgagee and indeed their successors (future buyers). The £45 policy quoted above sounds cheap and probably only covers the buyers. Far better to have successors covered too as otherwise this point will come up again if you sell before 2013 and you will be asked to fund the policy at that stage. It is of course possible that the policies will get more expensive if the Church atively starts registering its interests.

 

Finally, make sure that you keep the policy documentation safe!

 

I can assure fellow members that the church IS activley registering it's interests

[Ch4rlieB]

Hey All.

 

We were in the process of buying a New Build. And requested and discussed Chancel Check and insurance.

 

Here's an interesting fact about Chancel Check, The check doesnt actually see if you have liability, it see's if there is a potential for a liability. And my understanding from my solicitor is that every house in the country has potential liability, I believe there is a company that will just provide insurance without the check. Not sure on the company.

 

The best bit about chancel Check is its run by CoE the same people who will be claiming the money back off you if the claim off you.

[JonCris]

If you, or your solicitor, do your own search at Kew National Records Office & find you do have liability you will not be able to obtain insurance as that would be like telling your car insurer you are very likely to have an accident!

 

The insurance offered is on the basis that there is a risk & no more.

 

Nor is every property is at risk. It is only those, new or old, within medieval parish boundaries which are formally Tithe Land

[pommymike]

The e-petition on the 10 Downing Street web site has now closed, and it will be interesting to see what response it gets from the Prime Minister.

 

Incidentally the ChancelCheck search is not run by the Church.

 

ChancelCheck searches do not reveal liability based on old enclosure awards (when the church was awarded common land as glebe in return for giving up collecting tithes from the farming community of the parish).

 

ChancelCheck only reveals liability established by the Tithe Redemption Commission in 1936 (when tithe rentcharges were converted to tithe redemption annuities by the Tithe Act 1936).

 

The Church Commissioners were in some cases given Treasury stock as compensation for the extinguishment of tithe rentcharges and the chancel repair liability was then transferred to the Parochial Church Council of the parish.

 

Chancel repair liability is quite rare and it is practically never enforced.

 

Generally it only applies where the land was common land enclosed as glebe land (usually in the 1700s or 1800s), in lieu of tithes (as happened in Aston Cantlow) or in 1936 the tithe rentcharges were owned by the same person as owned the land out of which they were payable. The tithe rentcharges were not necessarily payable to the Church but to "lay rectors" or "improprietors" who had purchased them after the dissolution of the monasteries in the time of Henry VIII.

 

I have seen examples of tithe maps which are very inaccurate and the fields have all been built over so the field boundaries have disappeared. There are odd fields dotted about the parish which were supposedly "tithe fields" and subject to chancel repair liability but whether any particular house is affected is often impossible to ascertain due to the inaccuracy of the maps.

 

No one realistically has an obligation to register a liability against their own property on the basis of such inaccurate information.

 

A full chancel repair search does not necessarily reveal whether liability exists, but only the researcher's guess at what the maps show.

 

If the Church were to try to enforce liabilities there would be strong arguments that the rights have been lost through the neglect to claim, for many years, under the Limitation Act.

 

Also some members of the House of Lords indicated that the case of Wickhambrook PCC v Croxford (High Court - Kings Bench Division Vol 2 page 417 of 1935) was probably wrongly decided. In this case it was decided that the ladies who collected the tithe rentcharges had not received enough money to cover the liability, but were nevertheless liable for the chancel repairs.

 

Under the Chancel Repairs Act 1932 the Court had to decide whether they would have been "liable to be admonished" by an Ecclesiastical Court for being contumeleous in refusing to do their religious duty as lay rectors of repairing the chancel.

 

The Ecclesiastical Court would never have admonished someone who had received no tithes at all, and was never even entitled to collect tithes.

So the correct decision would have been that they were not "liable to be admonished."

 

The House of Lords could declare Wickhambrook wrongly decided and this would be effective to abolish chancel repair liability, except for the liability of the Church Commissioners and certain colleges, cathedrals etc, which chose in 1936 to receive Government stock in lieu of tithe rentcharges and to retain the liability.

[JonCris]

pommymike all of what you say is correct but for one thing & that is whilst it's very rare for chancel liability to be enforced the Church is at present using, as well as their own in house staff & outside practises to have their interest identified then registered with the LR at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds

 

IMHO if they are doing this at considerable cost then I suspect they must have a plan

[pommymike]

JonCris you may be right but I don't think anyone really knows. There seems to be a news blackout on this and the information on the Church website is years out of date.

 

I can't say it's not happening but I have never heard of anyone who actually has had this registered against them at the Land Registry (yet).

 

I think the first time this actually happens and the Church stops people selling their property there will be even more of an outcry.

 

While there are only rumours that the Church is employing people to register claims etc, probably most people will still not quite believe it will ever happen to them.

 

I think the plan in the mind of the William Fittal, Secretary General of the General Synod must be to try to force the Government to pay the Church compensation for abolishing it, or at least to stop reducing grants from English Heritage because there is a poor devil who is supposed to pay.

 

I don't think the Government will ever pay compensation but it should tell English Heritage to ignore the liability (no longer to stop repair grants because of it) and this would then remove the need for the Church to make claims and it would then be possible for Mr William Fittal to save face and agree to abolition. It is Mr Fittal who has been stopping the Synod abolishing it even though bishops such as the Bishops of Rochester and Coventry are not against abolition.

 

I think anyone like me who feels that Chancel Repair Liability is a cruel extortionate medieval tax that should have been abolished along with bear bating and the pillory should write to their MPs and perhaps something will be done. At the moment I don't think many MPs are even aware of this issue.

 

If Parliament won't act there is plenty of scope for the lawyers to challenge this medieval tax in Court and I for one would be delighted to have the opportunity of doing so.

[JonCris]

pommymike I can assure you it is happening I could, if it were possible, even name the Ecclesiastical Registrar Law Practises who are actively engaged in this work.

 

In addition last year the C of E was recruiting, through the legal press, staff for just this process of registration

 

The fact that as yet no one has found their property registered I can only assume that no registered property has yet been sold or too few, in the overall scheme of things are yet registered

 

I agree it should be abolished but as for getting the public on side I think your flogging a dead horse because they will think it won't ever affect them.

 

They will only realize the need to do something when they discover that every type of property whether it be new or old could be liable

[Frog Boiler]

Very interesting thread

 

I am currently buying a property and this has been identified by "ChancelCheck" to be in a tithe district within a parish which continues to have a potential chancel repair liability.

 

Given that the property dates from around 1760 and is rural then I am thinking that taking out the insurance would be a sensible solution to this potential problem.

 

However a thought occurs to me

The church is supposed to be GOD's representative on Earth. If the chruch made a claim against me for repairs then would this be classified as an Act of God? If So this is usually exempted in most terms of insurance.

 

Any thoughts.

[JonCris]

Sorry nice try but even God has to be insured these days.

 

An act of God is no longer a reason for exempting policy cover.

[JonCris]

On the otherhand you could just pray

[Frog Boiler]

I'll take my chances with the insurance:rolleyes:

[Fredsie]

The Petition to the Prime Minister has today resulted in the following response from the government:

 

"Chancel Repair Liability has existed for several centuries and the Government has no plans to abolish it or to introduce a scheme for its redemption. The Government has, however, acted to make the existence of the liability much simpler to discover. From October 2013, chancel repair liability will only bind buyers of registered land if it is referred to on the land register. By that time, virtually all freehold land in England and Wales will be registered. The Government believes that this approach strikes a fair balance between the landowners subject to the liability and its owners who are, in England, generally Parochial Church Councils and, in Wales, the Representative Body of the Church in Wales. The Government acknowledges that the existence of a liability for chancel repair will, like any other legal obligation, affect the value of the property in question, but in many cases this effect can be mitigated by relatively inexpensive insurance. It is for the parties involved in a transaction to decide whether or not to take out insurance."

 

Nothing encouraging there.

[JonCris]

The Petition to the Prime Minister has today resulted in the following response from the government:

 

"Chancel Repair Liability has existed for several centuries and the Government has no plans to abolish it or to introduce a scheme for its redemption. The Government has, however, acted to make the existence of the liability much simpler to discover. From October 2013, chancel repair liability will only bind buyers of registered land if it is referred to on the land register. By that time, virtually all freehold land in England and Wales will be registered. The Government believes that this approach strikes a fair balance between the landowners subject to the liability and its owners who are, in England, generally Parochial Church Councils and, in Wales, the Representative Body of the Church in Wales. The Government acknowledges that the existence of a liability for chancel repair will, like any other legal obligation, affect the value of the property in question, but in many cases this effect can be mitigated by relatively inexpensive insurance. It is for the parties involved in a transaction to decide whether or not to take out insurance."

 

Nothing encouraging there.

 

The above is complete & utter rollocks & shows a complete lack of understanding about the problems faced by property owners.

 

In particular their ignorance is displayed for all to see where they remark that "insurance may be taken out"

 

Once a liabilty is registered insurance is not available. The current liability insurance is based on a risk of liabilty not a proven liability - pillocks

 

& these people are running the country - no wonder it's in such a mess

[Fredsie]

Indeed. But you can tell from the way that they say "in many cases this effect can be mitigated ..." that they know they aren't really responding effectively. Typical weasel words to give the impression to the uninformed that there isn't really a problem.

[JonCris]

It's going to be a major disaster when properties are registered.

 

Values will plummet I mean would you buy a home which you knew had such a liability which in theory could run into 10s of thousands of pounds & for which there is no insurance - I know I wouldn't.

 

Also it occurs to me that when the mortgage lenders cotton on to this, as the insurers have to building on flood plains, it will be nigh impossible to get a mortgage

[Fredsie]

when the mortgage lenders cotton on to this ... it will be nigh impossible to get a mortgage

 

Wow, that's a good point, hadn't thought of that. But maybe that could in due course raise enough dust to make the government reconsider?

[JonCris]

I know Many think the chances of being asked to pay Chancel repairs are so slim as to be not worth worrying about. Problem is I know that the church is now in the process of registering as much property as possible before the 2013 deadline - As this is costing them hundreds of thousands of pounds they must have a plan - or why bother?

[Fredsie]

I'm desperately trying to avoid making my feelings on the Church, and religion generally, plain for fear of getting blocked on my first day in the forum, but I agree they won't be making this investment just for fun. Some nasty surprises are on the way for many homeowners over the next year or two. Does the Land Registry (have to) let you know if some new claim is registered on your property?

[JonCris]

No they don't.

 

You will only discover it's been registered if you enquire or a buyer does a search which any competent conveyancer will do or risk being accused of professional negligence

[pommymike]

The Land Registry Practice Guide 66 : http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/assets/library/documents/lrpg066.pdf

states that the Land Registry may either register a "unilateral notice" without evidence of the liability or an "agreed notice" with evidence filed.

In either case notice of the application will be given to the registered proprietor. If it is a unilateral notice the registered proprietor can have it cancelled as of right. If it is an "agreed notice" which only means the Registrar has agreed it seems right, he can apply for cancellation.

The Land Registry Guide accepts as others have pointed out that a "right in respect of the repair of a church chancel" is not an interest in land (and therefore the Land Registry has no right to register it as such.)

It is a personal claim against a lay rector for breach of a religous duty and not a claim against his property.

[JonCris]

Then what are the Church doing & where are they recording their interest if not at the LR?

 

Also their guidance might say that a unilateral notice can be cancelled by the registered owner - the reality is that the LR will refuse to cancel even if there is no evidence of the registered owners liability.

 

It's also the case that home owners often do not know that a liability has been registered until they arrange to sell - It's usually the buyer who discovers it causing them to distrust the seller because they didn't tell them

 

There was a recent case about Xmas time when a home owner discovered, after deciding to sell, a charge had been placed against her home without her knowledge.

 

The Finance Co' Welcome claimed she owed them money for a loan but failed for almost 1 year to supply copy documents of this alleged transaction.

 

When She contacted the LR & told them that she knew nothing of this loan the LR instead of asking Welcome to provide proof of liability, as per their own guidelines, when a charge is disputed, She was told by the LR that she would have to go to court, remember She was on the verge of having her home repossessed & was being told she would have to make application to a court.

 

It was only due the intervention of a free website she went on & subsequently Lawyers that this eviction was stopped - Welcome admitted it's mistake & apologised.

 

As a footnote & whilst I'm not suggesting there's any connection, a Welcome Manager was convicted at Manchester Crown Court for creating bogus loan accounts & transferring the monies to himself to fund his drug habit - coincidence or what? - but worth knowing if only to show what consumers can be up against

 

It's also proof, if proof were needed, of the power of sites such as this

[Fredsie]

Then what are the Church doing & where are they recording their interest if not at the LR?

 

 

I wonder if they're doing the research but deliberately not recording at the Land Registry just yet for fear of spooking the horses, and then intending to register them all as a block just before the deadline? Or perhaps that's too devious?

[JonCris]

Fredsie after becoming involved in the charges campaign & the gross mendacity displayed by the banks nothing but nothing would surprise me any more