Petition to abolish Chancel repair liability

AdrianC

jjlandlord wrote: »

I like the euphemism "established church" to describe the state religion we have in this country.

Hardly a euphemism. It's the correct term.

It's only unlikely to change as long as the majority do not want it to change...

Well, since the two biggest political parties are against it...

The last time there was an EDM in Parliament on the subject was 2008 - under Brown as PM - and only 20 MPs signed it.

jjlandlord

AdrianC wrote: »

Hardly a euphemism. It's the correct term.

The "correct" term can absolutely be an euphemism... It's quite common.

AdrianC wrote: »

Well, since the two biggest political parties are against it...

Ah so political parties tell us what to do?

It's the other way round: They are against it because they sense that most people are against it.
As said, this may change. Looking at the waning religious beliefs in the country I'm guessing that it will change at some point.

wannabe_sybil

Just to mention...

Each parish church, while part of the larger organisation, will have to largely fund their own repairs. The Churchwardens have a legal duty to raise any funds that they may, and may be personally liable if they allow church money or money due to the church to be missed.

I also remember the bitterness of one vicar, stuck with a twelfth century church. They had to repair the belfry, because it was a listed building. Not only that, but because it was a Grade One listed building it had to be repaired 'appropriately' ie expensively. Failure to do so could lead to prosecution of the Churchwardens. I don't think they used Chancel liability, but the vicar really resented what he took as the mission of Christ being diverted for some bricks and mortar.

I think it was incredibly brave of the Churchwardens of that parish to rule out Chancel liability, because it only takes some nutter to raise an action and they would be stuffed. I imagine there are a lot of small parish churches that would like this clearing up.

There is a very small, but definite, feeling in some parts of the church that actually demolishing/selling off the medieval churches and using church halls is much more practical and a better use of church resources. A lot of churchgoers are more about Christ than buildings.

theEnd

.. but surely all these properties were a bit cheaper to buy because of the CRL?

Is it something you didn't know about before you bought? or just some extra greed after the event?

stator

theEnd wrote: »

.. but surely all these properties were a bit cheaper to buy because of the CRL?

Is it something you didn't know about before you bought? or just some extra greed after the event?

The vast majority of people didn't know about it until the Wallbank case.
Houses where it was registered before the Wallbank case most people were told that it was a weird legacy from the past that is never enforced and so to ignore it.

rosie383

Can I just clarify please: Would the vendors of the house we are buying be aware that there is CRL on the house? If they bought in 2003 it would have shown up in the searches or deeds at the time, or they would have received a letter since if the local parish had registered?

And if they don't know, then surely when we get a copy of the deeds we will see for ourselves without having to pay the solicitor £24 to do a special search.

jamesd

There was no reason for it to show up in the deeds in 2003. It's unlikely that they would have any idea if it applies. Because the property has not been sold since 2013 a check by you at the Land registry will not reveal whether there is liability.

Kittycat1981

We have just bought our house, up the road is a CofE church, during our searches this came up and we had to pay £20 chancel repair insurance. We knew nothing about this until the searches, i had to google what it was.

Although it is a very low one off payment it did annoy me. I have never been in the church and have no desire to ever go into it/use it (different religion/beliefs to my own although not practising).

jamesd

Chancel repair insurance is not generally mandatory even when there happens to be a church in the area. The area could be a long way away as well - hundreds of miles potentially. The trouble with the searches is that it's rarely possible to say "no risk" so it turns into a mugs game where most people are told that there is a "possible risk" and pointed in the direction of insurance.

Some lenders might want the insurance but not all would - mine didn't.

You're also not constrained to not knowing. One thing I did was ask the vicar at the nearest church by email if he knew of any liability, the answer to which was no. A little care is appropriate with this because if the answer was yes you'd have to declare it and couldn't get the insurance. But in that case you might want to back out of the purchase anyway.

bcu67

jamie11 wrote: »

The churches (all varieties and religions) are awash with real wealth, gold, antiquities, artworks and buildings. They make out an individual parish is too poor to carry out it's own repairs. There seems to be no wish to dig into it's own coffers to maintain those properties it owns

The problem with statements like this is that you take a partial truth and draw falsehood. Yes - some (not all) churches have wealth but that does not mean they are wealthy. The church also owns 45% of all grade 1 listen buildings and I am sure many would not want all those buildings just to fall into disrepair.

The Church of England is not one big charity but is in fact lots of different charities. This means that your local church does not have any land, and is not in fact wealthy. And it may actually have expensive artwork, but they are not allowed to sell it (they would need a faculty which are very hard to get) and if a church is brave enough to try and sell there is usually uproar in the local community. So when you local medieval grade 1 listed church needs help to fix the roof and says they have no money - that's because they have no money and every church accounts are displayed in the church somewhere under charity commission law and anyone local can examine those accounts.

The Church Commissioners do have assets - and this is often the figure quoted. These include the vicarages, the glebe land and the investments, as well as the churches and churchyards.

At present these assets are either lived in (the vicarages) by the vicar (so costs and pay are kept down), or give an income (trusts and glebe lands) which helps pay some of the vicar's stipend as well as pay the pensions of the retired clergy, as well as funding some of the mission of the church.

Now with that money they can either sell everything and spend it now - which will helps this generation but rather stuffs up the next - or they can manage it so that there will be some to help the church in future years. Sensible moneysaving is to save a bit for the future. At present the policy is to spend the income not the capital, though some capital will have to go on pensions.

Back to the OP however - Chancel Repair liability is a stupid law but it's not the churches fault - it's a quirk of the English law and the churches can't do anything about it - but parliament can.