Chancel;
"The space around the altar of a church
for the clergy and sometimes the choir"
There are 15,000 parishes in England, out of those 5,200 are at risk from Chancel repair liability.
Chancel repair liability benefits pre-Reformation churches in England and Wales. It allows the Church
Council of the parish to require the owners of former rectorial land to pay for the repair of the church chancel.
Because the chancel of a church was the area where the parish priest or rector, officiated, the duty of
repairing the chancel of an ancient parish church fell on the owner of property attached to the rectory.
It is important to know that such rectorial land was, and is not, necessarily situated in close
proximity to a church building.
We recommend a Chancelcheck search is carried out on every property transaction.
ChancelCheck_Certificate No Risk Indentified (Sample)
ChancelCheck Report Potential Liability (Sample)
Full Chancel Repair Search
A Chancel Repair Search is designed to highlight whether a particular property you are proposing to purchase
may be affected by a potential “Chancel Repair” obligation to the local Parish Church. Chancel repairs stem from
medieval times, where the Church was granted powers to charge rectorial property for the upkeep of the chancel of
the parish church. Potentially any property located within the boundaries of a Parish where such a liability exists
could be "caught".
Areas where A Full Chancel Repair Search identifies the exact location of the subject of search within the marked
plots of land on Tithe Maps held by the National Archives and discloses the percentage of the total liability for
chancel repairs associated with the relevant plot or plots.
Chancel Liability Insurance
This product has been designed to completely replace a Chancel or Parish Liability search.
- This provides cover for £500,000.00 to protect against any claim by the church and therefore does NOT need to be based upon the value of the property in question.
- This policy CAN be obtained if a Parish specific search has been purchased (but NOT if a full chancel repair search has been carried out).
- £14.95 inc IPT
- The policy covers all successors in title
- The only other caveat is that the property in question must not have more than 2 acres of land.
- Commercial policies are now available for just £52.50 inc IPT.
PWS_Conveyancing_Search_Price_List.pdf