Chancel check

dannyjebb

Thank you that is really helpful, the house was sold in 2014 to the current owner, if I pay £3 for the title from the land registry website will this tell me if it is liable for chancel repair?

Many thanks

always_sunny

dannyjebb wrote: »

Thank you that is really helpful, the house was sold in 2014 to the current owner, if I pay £3 for the title from the land registry website will this tell me if it is liable for chancel repair?

Many thanks

if your solicitor is really charging you £120 for the search (I paid £10, someone else paid £20) I would really look at all charges because you're getting ripped off!.

dannyjebb

All other charges seems in line with any others just seems they are trying to make a quick buck on this, helpful though that someone pointed out I can check on the title deeds with land registry

MissWitty

Hi I am in the process of purchasing my first home. The house is unregistered so there is no land registry documents to check if the land is liable for these chancel fees.

My solicitor sent me a huge document about searches and done this search as I never asked them not to, now they tell me my house is in an area where it could have possible chancel liabilities. They suggest I take out insurance costing between £50-£150 + £60 admin fee for doing the job. Is it even worth it? I didn!!!8217;t even want this check doing but they seemed to ignore my requests of no additional searches needed. I don!!!8217;t know if this is just them trying to get extra money from us?

Robin9

Ignore it - there isn't a church in the land that even if they had a potential Chancel Liability that would enforce it. It just isn't practical (let alone politically wise)

Image a field that had Chancel Liability - being developed into 50 houses and all 50 were requested to pay a Chancel Liability - 49 said yes, 1 said no - what would happen ?

bouicca21

See post #4. The sort of check Misswitty has only says that there is a document about that parish that might ( note, only MIGHT) say there is a liability on a bit of land somewhere in that parish. It might equally say there is no liability on any land in that parish.

If it does say a bit if land is liable, then it's possible to work out which bit of land. It won't be the whole parish.

G_M

If the house you are buying changed hands after October 2013 and nothing is registered at the Land Registry against it then there can be no Chancel Liability.

dannyjebb wrote: »

Thank you that is really helpful, the house was sold in 2014 to the current owner, if I pay £3 for the title from the land registry website will this tell me if it is liable for chancel repair?

Yes. If nothing shows on the registered Ttle, you're fine.


But why spend £3 (unless you want to)? Your solicitor will be getting the Title docs anyway!

MissWitty

As this property is unregistered and we will essentially be the first registrars of the house, then surely there will be nothing on our register to say we are liable for chancel charges and therefore this whole insurance thing is a waste of money?

bouicca21

Read the deeds. In the famous case that set off all this angst about chancel repairs, the liability was clearly stated on the deeds. But also do the check advised in post 4 and/or contact the local diocese to see what their policy is on pursuing such claims.

Richard_Webster

To reply to Miss Witty, if she succeeds in having her purchase registered without a Chancel Liability being slipped in during registration then she will be clear for the future.

The risk of a Church employing a solicitor to search for properties that haven't changed hands in an area since before (I think) October 2013 and then registering a liability (if there is in any case) is very small indeed. Trouble is if Miss Witty is getting a mortgage the lender will want to be protected against this admittedly tiny risk and the cheapest way of doing that is to take out insurance, which is unlikely to cost more than £20 unless her solicitor is really out of touch with reality.

Contacting a local vicar is not going to help for a number of reasons:

1. He probably won't know what you are on about.
2. If there is liability in the area you've just made it impossible to get insuarnce by notifying someone who could possibly initiate a registration.
3. The parish boundaries in question are those that existed in 1836 so the age of the nearest church may be irrelevant as it could have been built after that date when a parish was divided.

If solicitors are suggesting a £120 search when the property was last sold in 2014 (and they will have LR entries presumably showing no liability) they are being negligent and the client should not pay them for it in any event.