chancel liability, insurance etc

supermumno1 · 20 April 2007 at 3:18PM

Our solicitor has just thrown up some information about our purchase to say that the house is on land that is subject to chancel repair liability. On reading up on the web about this it would seem that a basic search showing we MAY be liable could then be covered by an insurance policy. However, our solicitor has then acted to do a more detailed search and appears to have now proven that the property is liable. According to some things I have read it may be a lot more difficult if not impossible to now insure against a potential claim. Has anyone trodden this path before and what did you do? Should our solicitor have undertaken the more detailed search (perhaps acting against our best interests if we can not insure?) and if not what can we do about it.

We are currently waiting to speak to another solicitor about it but hope that someone here maybe able to give us peace of mind that this problem can be overcome. We are so close to getting this house now and really do not want to lose it - but will if it comes with unlimited potential liability. Does anyone know if once this is marked in the Land registry if it will adversely affect the property price compared with now? I believe if the purchase does go ahead we have to declare this search by law and it will be registered on the Land registry.

Thanks

Addiscomber · 20 April 2007 at 3:37PM

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=386101&highlight=chancel

Enter Chancel into the search this forum box and you will find loads more threads.

supermumno1 · 20 April 2007 at 4:09PM

Thanks for the link - sadly I have already looked there and it does not answer the specific questions I have.

fivepound · 20 April 2007 at 4:22PM

We had almost the same thing come up last week on the house we are selling. Seems there are only 2 Solics in the whole area who even carry out this search and the people buying our house was using one of them. In my case, it was only the "Parish Liability check" and showed a "potential". My solic stopped it dead in the tracks by saying if my buyers wanted a indemnity policy they can buy it themselves. We heard nothing back!

BUT, Your solic should NOT have conducted the full search (normally this would cost £100) as now that it has been highlighted then by law they have to inform the land registry which renders the house involved almost if not unsellable.

Quote from web site :It is important to note that the liability does NOT have to be mentioned in the property deeds for it to be valid, the owner can still be 'found' by the PCC and the law enforced. Solicitors that DO manage to find out about the obligation during conveyancing are obliged to inform the land registry thus 'cursing' the property and rendering it impossible to sell or indeed to mortgage/remortage.

What a mess you have now all for the sake of paying £59 for an indemnity policy when the original search was done! To try and insure it now would be like ringing up for buildings cover the day after your house burnt down.

Look at these sites for more info!

http://www.chancelrepair.org/index.html
https://secure.clsl.co.uk/index.php

Woby_Tide · 20 April 2007 at 6:20PM

fivepound wrote: »

Quote from web site :It is important to note that the liability does NOT have to be mentioned in the property deeds for it to be valid, the owner can still be 'found' by the PCC and the law enforced. Solicitors that DO manage to find out about the obligation during conveyancing are obliged to inform the land registry thus 'cursing' the property and rendering it impossible to sell or indeed to mortgage/remortage.

So going on the premise that nigh on every property in the country is classed within a parish and could have a claim laid on it it sounds like the market will stall very quickly if all houses become unsaleable. Maybe chancelcheck are trying to engineer a crash?

Richard_Webster · 21 April 2007 at 10:37AM

Why on earth did your solr do the full search? Couldn't he see the logic of simply insuring? I know in one sense the insurance companies involved probably will be making on it but rightly or wrongly their logic ( i.e do basic search to find out if in area where there is some liablity and then insure) is difficult to ignore.

I think you might have a complaint against your solr for bad work. Did he explain the risks to you of carrying out a full Chancel Search before he did it?

As a conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful but I accept no liability except to fee-paying clients.

supermumno1 · 21 April 2007 at 1:02PM

Nope - we never knew the basic screening search had come back as a possible liability and were not asked about doing the full search. We brought this up with the solicitor he suggested that a full search is in our best interests as a purchaser. It would have been nice to have heard about either search before now. The first we knew about it was on Wednesday this week and yet the first search paperwork has a date of 9th January on it and the full search a date of 28th February. I'd love to know how leaving it until we are about to sign contracts is in our best interests. They have only just passed the info onto the vendors solicitor too.

On reading the paperwork we have been given the full search says that the property lies in the parish of abc which contains liable plots for chancel repairs, the property is within an area that contains many of these liable plots. .....the property lies within the vicinity of plots x y and z all of which are liable plots for chancel repairs. We have a poor map of the plots available. Although plots x, y, and z are listed in the record of ascertainments as paying "certain rentcharges" there is also a small plot w between two of them that does not appear on this record of ascertainments and is therefore presumably exempt from chancel repair liability. Although the above has come from the detailed search (done by search flow, after the basic search by chancel check) is this saying the property is definately liable or just maybe? - given that the property has not been precisely pinpointed on the tithe map? Our solicitor seems to think we do need to notify the land registry if we do go ahead with the purchase. Can anyone clarify that position to us because as we read it this is not absolute proof any more than the chancel check parish boundary check was. Presumably a possible liability does not need to be recorded in the Land registry?

Richard_Webster · 21 April 2007 at 1:39PM

Interesting point. You might be able to get away without registering the liability at the Land Registry on the basis that you do not definitely know that this adverse interest applies to the property. I suspect indemnity insurers would take a safety first view and still want a high premium from you.

Your solr can try asking the seller to pay the high premium - but I suspect that there could be resistance on the basis that if they hadn't done the full search and just insured then their liability would be much smaller.

As a conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful but I accept no liability except to fee-paying clients.

supermumno1 · 21 April 2007 at 3:13PM

A bit of an aside - IF we dont go ahead with the purchase (because we find we have to put an entry on the Land register), now that the sellers solicitor has been informed and in turn informed the vendor about the chancel searches, are they liable to have to pass on the information to another purchaser and/or the Land Registry?

Richard_Webster · 21 April 2007 at 4:24PM

If I was acting for the seller I would find it hard to find a way of avoiding this being revealed. Possibly the seller would go to another solr and not tell him?!

As a conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful but I accept no liability except to fee-paying clients.

boardster · 22 April 2007 at 10:34AM

I know that the Law Society have been lobbying for an end to this and there is an online petition to Downing St for a proper resolution to this. Don't know how to request a sticky which I'm sure would generate far more signatures.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Chancel-Repair/

chancel liability, insurance etc

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