Chancel repair liability

cauldron

Hi everyone.

I've tried looking up information on chancel repair liability. I'm really not clear on where I stand with it.

I am in the process of buying a new house. The land searches have come back.

It says at the time of writing there has been no notice entered against the property. It then says the Church will still be able to apply for a notice to register chancel repair liability until the property is registered at the Land Registry.

I assume this registered date will be the completion date.? Or have I got that wrong? What is the risk of them suddenly deciding to put a notice in? What would prompt them? Says there is a very low risk but I have given insurance quotes.

Hopefully someone here will have more of a clue than I have, it's all very new to me. Thanks. :eek::eek::eek::eek:

matttye

They can register a notice up until you do a pre-completion search known as an OS1. Once you do an OS1 you get a priority period whereby no new notices/restrictions can be registered up to a certain date. So long as you complete by that date, you're safe.

More info: http://freeconveyancingadvice.co.uk/sale-purchase/pre-completion-searches

Clutterfree

This came up on searches when my dad bought his property in 2013.
He bought in a village and it's an old parish thing that the church *could* ask its parishioners for money towards the cost of church repairs.
My dad took out a policy which was about £20 which would pay out in the unlikely event that the church enforced it.
It's a lifetime policy so £20 for peace of mind.

Strebor123

I'm going through the process of buying a house at the moment and rather than even bother to check anything I was just advised to pay for an indemnity to cover for it. It cost £10.

dc197

In addition to the risk, consider also the number of properties the area which would share the cost. This may or may not be the parish.
More houses means a more dilute share of the cost of any repair. Fewer houses, a greater chunk.
This will help you decide whether to spend on insurance, even if the insurance is not expensive.

Strebor123

I believe the parish doesn't spread the cost around all the eligible houses, they tend to pick one or a small handful. Think of the logistics, trying to get £10 of 1000 people just isn't practical.

dc197

Indeed, and that's one of the reasons why in a "dilute" parish you are less likely to need to pay anything.

cauldron

Thanks everyone for your help.

The cheapest quote i got was £59. Though from reading here there is a cheaper insurance provider.So I might get the solicitors to get a quote from them.

I live in Portsmouth so it's a pretty built up area. Though perhaps more in what I would call the suburbs. Still a lot of houses around. There are apparently 5 churches around here.

How would you know they had registered an interest? Assuming there was some sort of gal before completion date. Do another search after ive moved in? Or do you get informed?

Strebor123

I'm not a solicitor so I'd still advise you to talk to yours. But basically if you look into it and consequently find out there has been an interest registered on your property then you would not be able to take out an indemnity policy (or the insurance will be significantly more expensive)

In my opinion it would be best to ask your solicitor to find and take out a cheap indemnity policy rather than bother to find out anything. I'm not sure why yours are so expensive. As I said earlier, mine was £10.

polarization

I paid about £20 for my insurnace back in 2013.

From the reading I had back in 2013, even there are thousands of houses liable for the claim, the chruch can ask only one particular property (in an extreme) to pay for the repaire.

The reason why people did not carry out the details check is you cannot buy the chancel repaire liability insurance if it is actually in the area with the liability as it is a known fact but not a potential risk. Also, the amount you paid for the detail check may already over the insurnace itself. That is why my solicitor suggested me to buy the insurance than checking it.

Wassa123

The solicitor we used included chancel insurance in the searches pack.

Their view was that it was roughly the same price as paying for the chancel search in the first place so just bundled it in.