Chancel Repair Liability Insurance

bubbles311

We are selling our house and I have just been surprised by a request to purchase chancel repair liability insurance as our property, apparently may have liability for chanel repair, we have lived here for over 20 years and I have never heard of this before. Searching I have found another forum discussing this point but I cannot help feeling that this is con to make us by a pointless insurance policy th at will never be required. Apparently there was a property somewhere in the UK which was required to pay around £100k for a repair due to this liability. But I do not know if I am even liable just that there is a potential liability. There are so many houses in this area and we are about 1/4 mile away from the church so how likely is this to be enforced and what would it mean to us.

Jeewhizz

This was in the Sunday Times a few weeks back. You can get an insurance policy covering you for less than £100 iirc, so it's a small price to pay to get your seller to commit - why not offer to go halves?

Jee

maninthestreet

Who has made this request for you to purchase this insurance?
If anyone considering buying your house is worried about being liable for chancel repair costs, they can buy this insurance themselves, in the same way they would buy buildings insurance. As you rightly say, you haven't bothered with this insurance for your house in the 20 years you've owned it, so why should you buy it now when you are selling it and so unlikely to get any benefit from it? There only one thing worse than being under insured, and that's being over insured.

bubbles311

I will have to purchase this for the house I am buying and therefore do not want to pay twice, I have spoken to Solicitor who is going to approach the person I am buying from with the same request, I don't think I should pay for this twice, it is just that i had never heard of it before and no-one else I have spoken to has heard of it either. Should every householder be purchasing this or wait until they sell?

Woby_Tide

you're hitting the nail on the head. If it's so likely to happen why do only people who move suddenly get told it's important, or maybe the ploy is that all those householders who don't move can be left to stump up the cash whilst those with their lovely £160 insurance policies from the SINGLE company offering the cover, pay nothing....?

purplepatch

This is the story that hit the headlines recently.

The couple involved were on This Morning and the message from the experts was very much to get the insurance if this law might apply to your property.

However, as you are selling the property I would have thought there was a case for the buyers paying for it, or at least sharing the cost with you.

Richard_Webster

Have a look at: http://www.clsl.co.uk which is the site for the main company that does these Chancel Check Searches and can provide insurance. The rationale behind the saerches and the insurance is all explained there.

There are others doing similar searches and there are other indemnity insurance providers.

OK the people running the website do have a vested interest, but their argument is that for most people the cost of the search - about £12 and the cost of the insurance - about £60 in most cases - is a lot less than the cost of a full search - £100+. If you do the full seaerch and find that your property is actually subject to the liability as opposed to being in an area where there is some land subject to the liability, then the cost of insurance skyrockets.

Anyone who buys a property after 13 October 2013 and the liability is not registered on the Land Registry title will take completely free of any further possible liablity. Hence it is possible that some bright firm of solicitors will suggest to Churches that they could do these registrations for them before then and a lot of people will get stuck if they have no insurance. This probably won't happen, but who can be sure?

Privately as a Christian, I don't think it is right that the Church should be spending lots of money maintaining medieval buildings that are a drain on resources.

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

maninthestreet

"Privately as a Christian, I don't think it is right that the Church should be spending lots of money maintaining medieval buildings that are a drain on resources. "

I take it you're having a laugh?

Privately, as a home owner, I don't think it is right that I should have to pay to maintain a property owned by someone else, especially when that 'somebody else' is a very rich organisation such as the C of E.

david29dpo

religion in the past as caused nothing but trouble, why stop now?

Richard_Webster

Privately, as a home owner, I don't think it is right that I should have to pay to maintain a property owned by someone else

I agree and that was my point. I don't think it is right. I wasn't having a laugh - I was quite seriously making the point that it is wrong to try to collect money from people who may not have anything to do with the Church. It just sends out the wrong messages.

The Law Society has pointed out that the present situation - a kind of phased abolition causes as much trouble as it seeks to remedy e.g. the fact that solicitors can now feel compelled to arrange Chancel Repair Insurance. The simple answer is to legislate to remove the right altogether.

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.

RufusFrog_2

Because of this big news case solicitors are covering their backs by advising all clients to have the basic survey. The general view seems to be that the buyer should pay for the survey but the seller for the insurance. AFAIK the basic survey only tells you if the property is in a parish where the church has registered their intention to raise the tax, nothing about the actual house, and the insurance is cheaper than a proper survey as mentioned previously. We refused to have even the basic survey done and I think you should do some of your own research and put forward your case. If the property is 500 years old and called 'Canon's Rest' or somesuch, get the insurance sharpish but if it's 20 years old and is on what was previously agricultural land and is agricultural land on every historic map you can find in your county library back to the year dot then it's clearly not likely to be the site of the property of a previous 'lay canon' so I would present your evidence and tell whoever wants you to pay for the insurance where to stick it. I HATE these indemnity policies, only the insurance companies benefit and they nearly always seem to be taken out instead of simply sorting out the problem or applying common sense.