Chancel Repair Liability Insurance Cost

lucyg1974

We have been informed by our buyers solicitor that our property could be liable for Chancel Repair Liability. They have asked us to take out an indemnity insurance policy to protect our buyer against possible claims. Can anyone tell me what the average cost of a policy of this type is? We are in Buckinghamshire and are selling our property at £220,000.

Many Thanks
Lucy

laurel7172

Some figures here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/444583

Sorry I can't be more help-it all looks frightfully complicated. Good luck!

timmyt

lucyg1974 wrote: »

We have been informed by our buyers solicitor that our property could be liable for Chancel Repair Liability. They have asked us to take out an indemnity insurance policy to protect our buyer against possible claims. Can anyone tell me what the average cost of a policy of this type is? We are in Buckinghamshire and are selling our property at £220,000.

Many Thanks
Lucy

£59-£88

But your lawyer needs to take a hard line and tell the Buyer that those postcode searches are useless and his own client must pay for any insurance as you are selling and walking away and such peace of mind is their problem.

that is becoming a universally accepted response from sellers, and quite right.

Richard_Webster

£59-£88

But your lawyer needs to take a hard line and tell the Buyer that those postcode searches are useless and his own client must pay for any insurance as you are selling and walking away and such peace of mind is their problem.

that is becoming a universally accepted response from sellers, and quite right.

Whilst I agree it is becoming a universally accepted response from sellers I am not sure I agree it is right.

It has always been the case that if there is some legal issue with a property then it is up to the seller to solve it, .e.g a breach of restrictive covenant requiring an indemnity policy.

I think the real point here is that the whole business about Chancel Repairs is so obscure that rather than the seller's solicitor giving a complicated explanation he just tells his client that the buyer wants the seller to pay for it and the seller says "No" and the seller's solicitor is then relieved he doesn't have to explain the theoretical justification for the seller paying for it.

Also particularly at the lower £59 level most buyers take the view that it is not worth having the argument and wasting time. Maybe for £150 for a restrictive covenant policy they might push the point further with a seller if he refused to pay for that.

When I get asked by a buyer's solicitor for a policy I just offer them one on my block policy which only costs my client £10 so it certainly isn't worth arguing on the point.

And before I get the usual e-mails asking me to arrange one of these for somebody who has been told it will cost more, I can only do it for my clients and their buyers - ask your own solicitor why he hasn't got a block policy - the insurance is cheaper than the cost of the basic "Chancel Check" Search so why bother with the search?

So as a matter of principle I don't actually agree with timmyt. but in the real world it is usually not worth wasting time having an argument on this.

DVardysShadow

timmyt wrote: »

£59-£88

But your lawyer needs to take a hard line and tell the Buyer that those postcode searches are useless and his own client must pay for any insurance as you are selling and walking away and such peace of mind is their problem.

that is becoming a universally accepted response from sellers, and quite right.

Have to agree with Richard on this. His £10 block policy blows your argument out of the water.

timmyt

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Have to agree with Richard on this. His £10 block policy blows your argument out of the water.

Dvardy, calm down its not a competition, just telling you how it is done around my area and the views lawyers are taking.

The cheapo chancel searches done are a complete waste of time, they are postcode based and neither confirm nor deny liability, they just cannot be sure there is a liability when they say 'report'. It is the search that I cannot have my client condone and then pay for its recommended insurance.

and what I find increasingly distrurbing is how frequent the chancel searches are now coming back 'Report'. In ths current climate these companies are being squeezed and i do so hope that - and I hope I am being paranoid - that these companies are not pushing 'report' results to then bag the insurance.

Anyway, if a Buyer came back with a proper £200 chancel search carried out that shows pretty conclusive proof of a liability then fine, but postcode searches are just not in any way something an outgoing seller need be concerned with. You buy into a property knowing its history and you insure yourself.

No argument yet convinces me or any of my colleagues otherwise.

The same problem with enviro searches too. They are not property specific, and lenders in the main do not care about a 'further action' result.

some clarity from the Law Society about what the exepctations are for lawyers would be very useful.

geoffky

i have just paid £180 for a lifetime one..i was the buyer..

DVardysShadow

timmyt wrote: »

Dvardy, calm down its not a competition, just telling you how it is done around my area and the views lawyers are taking.

The cheapo chancel searches done are a complete waste of time, they are postcode based and neither confirm nor deny liability, they just cannot be sure there is a liability when they say 'report'. It is the search that I cannot have my client condone and then pay for its recommended insurance.

and what I find increasingly distrurbing is how frequent the chancel searches are now coming back 'Report'. In ths current climate these companies are being squeezed and i do so hope that - and I hope I am being paranoid - that these companies are not pushing 'report' results to then bag the insurance.

Anyway, if a Buyer came back with a proper £200 chancel search carried out that shows pretty conclusive proof of a liability then fine, but postcode searches are just not in any way something an outgoing seller need be concerned with. You buy into a property knowing its history and you insure yourself.

No argument yet convinces me or any of my colleagues otherwise.

The same problem with enviro searches too. They are not property specific, and lenders in the main do not care about a 'further action' result.

some clarity from the Law Society about what the exepctations are for lawyers would be very useful.

I can't see the point of a search. You have opened the box and you have found a bomb. Now you must insure against the bomb going off, knowing for certain you have a bomb

I can see the point of insurance. You insure against a bomb being found in the unopened box and that bomb going off. Much cheaper.

timmyt

it is folly to actually do the desktop searches as routine, but most lawyers do....band wagon ...cheap etc...and so we do

liability has always been around and you used to do searches when the property had some conenction with a church (in its name or location) though that was not conclusive even still.

thankfully the law is changing soon so that unless it is on the registered title, generally you will not be able to enforce.


we rejected block insurance for each and every purchase as we think a buyer would at least want a cheapo search done to at least find out...but as I say, these searches are pointless and not property specific, so i have been thinking for a while to actually move over to block insurance each time - as it would be cheaper than doing searches each time - and yet at the buyers cost, as doing a search and getting a 'report' search result is still no grounds to ask the seller to pay as one simply cannot say with certianty that a seller has liability from a £20 desktop search.

so it makes me crazy when a buyer asks my selling client to pay for the insurance.

<sebb>

timmyt wrote: »

it is folly to actually do the desktop searches as routine, but most lawyers do....band wagon ...cheap etc...and so we do

liability has always been around and you used to do searches when the property had some conenction with a church (in its name or location) though that was not conclusive even still.

thankfully the law is changing soon so that unless it is on the registered title, generally you will not be able to enforce.


we rejected block insurance for each and every purchase as we think a buyer would at least want a cheapo search done to at least find out...but as I say, these searches are pointless and not property specific, so i have been thinking for a while to actually move over to block insurance each time - as it would be cheaper than doing searches each time - and yet at the buyers cost, as doing a search and getting a 'report' search result is still no grounds to ask the seller to pay as one simply cannot say with certianty that a seller has liability from a £20 desktop search.

so it makes me crazy when a buyer asks my selling client to pay for the insurance.

Seriously, if it costs your client £10 to add them to the block insurance, then I can't see why you wouldn't offer this.

I agree there seem to be lots of things in the house buying process that seem to be a money earner for some people (don't get me started on indemnity insurance - not worth the paper it's written on if you ask me) but for the sake of a tenner when you are spending tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds, it seems to make sense.

DVardysShadow

timmyt wrote: »

so it makes me crazy when a buyer asks my selling client to pay for the insurance.

Toxic waste, not lightning. Seller has lovely property with a potential toxic waste liability. Seller is responsible for showing there is no toxic waste on the premises, because the toxic waste has already arisen - indeed, the vendor may already be aware....

Buyer buys property which gets struck by lightning. Seller can have no knowledge of future clod formations and charge distributions. Buyer manages this risk.

Is chancel liability lightning or toxic waste?