Chancel Repair Liability
Posted on: 27th November 2006
Depending on where you live, you may be liable to contribute to the repair costs for your local church’s chancel. This type of liability has existed unchanged since the Reformation. The Law Society is calling for the abolition of chancel repair liability and its replacement with a more sensible system for funding the maintenance of historic buildings. The chancel repair liability system is unsatisfactory for a number of reasons:
- It is uncertain and capricious because it’s often very difficult to ascertain the existence or extent of the liability.
- It is increasing the cost of conveyancing.
- It is discriminatory, benefiting only churches of one denomination.
The liability was highlighted quite recently by the case of Aston Cantlow and Wilmcote with Billesley Parochial Church Council v Wallbank. The House of Lords, reversing the Court of Appeal’s decision, held that enforcing the liability did not contravene the Human Rights Act.
This case has drawn attention to the potential liability in a disproportionate way and this in turn has distorted the market for searches and insurance products. Some of these products do not provide the solution that practitioners and their clients seek.
In 1982 the General Synod of the Church of England resolved that chancel repair liability be phased out over 20 years, and in 1985 the Law Commission recommended that it be abolished. The Law Society has made a powerful submission to the Government, calling for abolition accompanied by appropriate financial contributions to historic churches.
Paul Cowdery, Head of the Property Department at Clarke & Son, comments:
“The issue of chancel repair liability is causing great practical difficulties in day to day conveyancing. We must now carry out an extra search as a matter of routine and whilst the cost of this search is modest it results in a significant number of cases in the need to set up insurance cover to provide some protection against this liability. As the law stands this is an approach we will have to take up to 2013 by which time the Church must formally register its right to seek a chancel contribution failing which the liability will fall. As a firm we support the Law Society’s stance and any effort to remove the uncertainty caused at a much earlier date.”
This article has been adapted from a Law Society Circular from November 2006.