Chancel repair liability


Chancel repair liability is a legal obligation on some property owners in England and Wales to pay for certain repairs to a church which may or may not be the local parish church.
Where people own property within land that was once rectorial, they may have wittingly or unwittingly acquired a responsibility to fund repairs to the chancel of the medieval-founded Church of England parish church or Church in Wales church which that glebe land supported. This can still be invoked by the church council of some parishes.
It is currently common practice for purchasers of land to check whether the local parish includes a church where such a liability may apply, and if so to take out chancel liability insurance.

History

From pre-Reformation times, churches in England and Wales have been ministered by either a vicar, who received a stipend, or a rector or parson who received tithes from the parish. The rectors were responsible for the repairs of the chancel of their church, while the parish members were responsible for the rest of the building. Monasteries and Oxford and Cambridge colleges could buy or receive rectorships, and thus become liable for chancel repairs. When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and sold their rectory, or the relevant university college sold this, the chancel repair liability passed with that land and persists today, even after subdivision. The owners of such land are thus equally called lay impropriators or lay rectors.
As far as spiritual rectors are concerned, their liability transferred to parochial church councils by the Ecclesiastical Dilapidations Measure 1923.
The recovery of funds from lay rectors is governed by the Chancel Repairs Act 1932.
In concept, to be a lay rector is now entirely a burden for having taken rights over land such as impropriated glebe or abbeylands and therefore being exempt from paying the tithes that other parts of that parish paid, as the agricultural produce or and d)'' of apportionment of chancel liability, from the church website itself. If a parish's liability only falls under headings a) or b) then those persons are liable only, however some geographically diverse parishes had extraneous tithings and in a few cases in the 19th century a merger of the rectory/rectorial land and tithes into one piece of land as a whole took place, such as in Aston Cantlow.

Liability-free parishes

In a majority of parishes there is a vicar and crucially the historic university college or other rectory-owning major landowner only sold their land free from tithe under the Tithe Acts so they, or more commonly, the local church, bears the liability for the local chancel. In a minority of parishes a rector persists and his/her predecessors in that role never sold any land, as permitted after 1836, while granting the new owners the right to levy a rentcharge, automatically co-opting all successors to that land to potential liability for the chancel, or conducted a similar sale with a "merger of tithes", or saw part of an inclosure act swap glebe for common.
In liable ecclesiastical parishes, only a minority have exercised their rights to apportion the cost of chancel repairs among the affected landowners, despite the common nature of checks and insurance.

Wallbank case

In the vast majority of ecclesiastical parishes chancel repair liability is not applicable. However, it was brought into use for the first time in a few years in 2003 in a particularly lightly populated glebe. Andrew and Gail Wallbank received a demand for almost £100,000 to fund repairs of their ecclesiastical parish's medieval church at Aston Cantlow. After a protracted legal battle, as they sought to challenge this ruling, the Law Lords found in favour of the parochial church council, leaving the Wallbanks with a £350,000 bill including legal costs.
The case is constitutionally significant for finding that a parochial parish council is not a "core public authority" under the Human Rights Act 1998.
St. John the Baptist church, Aston Cantlow's historic rectory was acquired by the Priors of Maxstoke in 1345 leaving a "discharged vicarage" and creating lay improprietors of the glebe land – e.g. in 1848 this was the Earl of Abergavenny. He held the glebe land, in this case helpfully named Glebe Farm, so was responsible for the chancel. Later buyers of this land remain liable.

Registration of liability

Subsequent to this case, it became best practice for new purchasers to be advised to request a check as to whether the local parish included an older rector's church, not evolved from a chapel but now with a vicar, and if so to take out chancel liability insurance. Unless such a check was made, homeowners who had lived in their property since before 2003 were unlikely to be aware of their liability or to have insurance, as chancel repair liability would not have been registered on their title and may not have been researched by their conveyancers on moving in. If it was not noticed by solicitors and the church enforced the liability across the affected land, action against the solicitors may be time-barred after six years.
Through provisions made under the power of the Land Registration Act 2002, the onus was put on parochial church councils to identify all affected land and register their interest before 13 October 2013. This means that chancel repair liability is no longer an "overriding interest" protected under the Land Registration Act 2002. The assumption has been made that, since that date, new owners of land are only bound by chancel repair liability where it was already entered on the Title Register database kept by the Land Registry. The Law Society expressed doubts about this in 2006.
Some parochial church councils have therefore followed the process in order to secure a valuable asset. However, others may have concluded that registering the right to claim chancel repair was likely to damage the church's mission or reputation in the local community, and have taken no action.
An online petition to the Prime Minister requesting legislation to remove this liability resulted in the following response in 2008:
Peter Luff, MP for Mid Worcestershire led an adjournment debate in the House of Commons on 17 October 2012 to seek a change in the law, above and beyond the required registration entries and notifications on all affected properties by 13 October 2013.
The minister responsible was not convinced that a change was necessary at the time.

Chancel Repairs Bill 2014

On 16 July 2014, Lord Avebury gave the first reading to a new , which would have had the effect of ending all liability of lay rectors for the repair of the chancels of churches and chapels in England.
Lord Avebury caused to be printed these . This Bill made no further progress in the session of Parliament, and, consequently, it has been "lost" - it is no longer before Parliament.

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