Results of Chancel Search

Baby_A

We have just had the results of some searches and the chancel search shows that the property we are looking to buy is located within the historical boundary of a parish which continues to have a potential chancel repair liability.

What is this and how much will it approx cost me? I am a FTB and dont have a clue.

Thanks

silvercar

If the church needs repairs you could be obliged to pay for them.

the insurance, that your solicitor can arrange, costs a few hundred pound from memory. If the seller had this problem when they bought they may be able to pass the insurance onto you. If it has not been sold recently then they probably won't have as this is a recent phenomemen.

Baby_A

silvercar wrote:

If the church needs repairs you could be obliged to pay for them..

Is this not negotiable, I dont even go church!?

bs0u0128

wudnt touch this with a bargepole personally!

ginandtonic1988

Norwich Union do a chancel insurance its around £100 you can either have a policy that just covers you or a transferable policy that you pass on to the new owners when you sell, the non transferable policy is cheaper so it could only be about £70. Some solicitors can arrange the policys on line then put them on risk when you complete (make sure you have a look at the draft policy first)

iolanthe07

This problem has been inflated out of all proportion because of one notorious case, and insurance companies have latched on to a nice little earner. Unless you are a Lay Vicar, through buying a house on land that was once part of ancient glebe, you are extremely unlikely to be responsible for any chancel repairs, but £70 - £100 may be worth paying for absolute peace of mind.

cwcw

Ask the vendor, via your solicitor, to put in place an indemnity policy to protect you and future buyers. It's extremely unlikely to ever cause a problem though.

rachaelc_2

Hiya Baby A,

Myself and my partner have been in exactly the same position as yourselves only a few weeks ago, what our solitor did was to ask the vendors to pay for the insurance for the chancel check report, it cost approx £70 and lasts for 25 years.

Hoep that helps

thescouselander

I was in this position just a few weeks ago.

I've did a bit of research and it seems that it is a problem effecting mainly larger houses in rural communities (although there is some theoretical risk to houses in built up areas). As I understand it, if the house is in an ancient parish area and if a qualifying church needs to be repaired and if they decide to invoke this ancient law and if all this happens during the time we own the house then we might be liable for a small proportion of the repair costs (a small proportion because the costs would be devided between the other houses in the area).

In my opinion, there is more probability of Jesus himself knocking on the door collecting for repairs to the church roof.

Also, the company who my solicitor used to do the chancel repair liability search (ChancelCheck) also sells indemnity insurance against this liability. They were hardly going to say that insurance wasn't needed. Its like asking a used car dealer if you should buy a new car - of course they will say yes.

In the end our vendor wouldn't pay for the insurance and we told our solicitor that we didn't want any as I think its a bit of a rip off.

GabbaGabbaHey

thescouselander wrote:

In my opinion, there is more probability of Jesus himself knocking on the door collecting for repairs to the church roof.

Have a look at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/3023276.stm - "£350,000 blow for church couple"

Was that your doorbell I just heard? :-)

thescouselander

GabbaGabbaHey wrote:

Have a look at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/3023276.stm - "£350,000 blow for church couple"

Was that your doorbell I just heard? :-)

That case was widely publicised and is the one stated by ChancelCheck in their promotional litrature. In fact, when you look into the case, the Wallbanks were well aware of the liability as it was spacifically mentioned in the deeds (or some other documentation relating to the house). Also, their property was in close proximity to the church in question.

The Wellbanks property was also on a reasonably large piece of land so the maximum liability was increased because of this. The original claim by the church was in the region of £8,000 and this increased to the £350,000 quoted due to costs associated with their court case. Also, the chancel deteriorated over the time they were fighting the case so the repair cost went up.

In my case, I bought on a modern development which is fairly densly built up and there isn't a church for miles. I would be very surprised indeed if a similar siuation were to develop and even if it did the costs would be spread over many properties in the area.

Its worth bearing in mind that this is a very unusual case and I could find no other instances of similar things hapening. In my opinion the insurance companies are just taking advantage of this news story to scare people into parting with £60 to insure against a virtually non-existant risk.