Historic rent charge

AWealth

Hi,
The sale of my property has fell through due to a historic rent charge from 1847, we have never been chased for any charges and the mortgage of the buyer fell through because we had to have it removed or an indemnity.  The Church is still there but we aren't allowed to contact it so we are therefore damned if we do and damned if we don't.  What mortgage companies accept properties with rent charges.  The solicitors have not give a solution and we have a property which has been empty for 4 years!  What can we do to sell it with the rent charge on?  Please advise?

MeteredOut

You say the solicitors have not given a solution, but it sound like they have: get an indemnity policy.

Why not just do that? Did you even get a quote for that? The fact you have never been charged should (hopefully) indicate the premium would not be onerous.

That will likely be much easier that trying to contact the church, or hoping that your buyer has a lender who does not care about such things (and if one does, they'll likely all do).

Smalltownhypocrite

I have absoloutly no expertise in this area so don't take my word for it but 'Professor Google' says

Rentcharges extinguish automatically 60 years from the date of which the Rentcharge first became payable.