Chancel liability

bouicca21

Jeanzbeabz - the liability will either be on the deeds or noted on the document at The National Archives. Read the guide that I posted. Then download the document and read it. Based on that information you can make an informed judgement about the indemnity. It will most likely say no liability; it might say liability on a particular plot of land (which will take a bit more effort to find, so a toss up as to whether your time is worth 80 quid); or it will say rectorial liability (so time consuming that it's well worth the 80 quid).

My ex bought a house in a parish that turned up on chancel check. I did the search for him. There was a liability so I went to stage 2 and identified the plot of land involved. It was several miles away from the house in question.

Very few solicitors or conveyancers actually know anything about chancel repairs.

TBagpuss

the 2013 change means that the Church has to register their interest against the property. If the house is sold after October 2013 then the new owners take free of any liability, provided that the church has not registered their interest.

So for OP, if their purchase completes without the church registering any interest, they should be fine, but the church could register their interest any time up until completion.

Then more recently there has beensome guidance from the Land Registry which has pointed out that the church can still apply to register an interest even after the propety has changed hands, it's just that it won't automatically be entitled.

Things are complicated by the fact that while some chruch councils don't want to register their interests, as they feel it is bad for relationships with parishoners, the people who have to make that choice are normally Parish Councellors whi are technically turstees, and could be in breach of their duties as trustees if they fail to act in the best (financial) interests of the church, making it difficult for them to give any assurances.
I velieve that there is one parish (In Gloucestershire, I think) where they sucessfully got a declaration from the Church Commissioners and/or the Charities Commission that they were permittted to *not* register the chuch's interest and would not face any personal liability as a result. In that case, I believe that the liability would have affected around 30 houses. However, although they chose not to register any interests at that tim there would be nothing to stop them doing so in future against any of the properties which had not ben sold again since 2013.

I think at the end of the day, it's a judgement call. The risk is relatively low, but it is small risk of a potentially very large expense - the Wallbanks, whose case was the one which made all the headlines, were responsible for around £230,000 in repairs and paid an extra £37,000 to buy out the covenent to release any future owners of the property from futher liability - in thair case, they were liable for the whole lot.

Land_Registry

TBagpuss wrote: »

Then more recently there has beensome guidance from the Land Registry which has pointed out that the church can still apply to register an interest even after the propety has changed hands, it's just that it won't automatically be entitled.

Things are complicated by the fact that while some chruch councils don't want to register their interests, as they feel it is bad for relationships with parishoners, the people who have to make that choice are normally Parish Councellors whi are technically turstees, and could be in breach of their duties as trustees if they fail to act in the best (financial) interests of the church, making it difficult for them to give any assurances.

As TBagpuus explains there remains a degree of uncertainty around this topic. Our blog articles at the time, 2013, sought to explain our position. However we are not the arbiters re this liability and it's legal/financial impact.

So from a registration perspective it is as already posted and I suspect that position won't change until for example an application is made to register the interest post 2013 and the outcome challenged, perhaps even through the courts. That has not happened as yet though.