In July the Law Commission published a consultation paper outlining proposals to reform the law around chancel repair liability in England and Wales. 

Chancel repair is a historic obligation dating back centuries, enabling parish churches to call upon local landowners to contribute towards the cost of repairing churches when they fell into disrepair.  

While modern cases are rare, when homeowners have been obliged to contribute towards chancel repairs in the past the financial costs have been considerable. 

Unfortunately, previous attempts to phase out this ancient liability have not been entirely successful, leading to uncertainty surrounding the continuing applicability of chancel repair liability.  

This uncertainty is estimated to cost the property industry millions of pounds in insurance costs each year. 

Most consider these costs to be unnecessary, and so the Law Commission is now seeking to clarify the law to ensure that there is a clear understanding of how and when chancel repair liability will still bind land.

What was wrong with previous attempts to reform the law? 

For many years chancel repair liability was classified as an overriding interest.  In the context of registered land, this is an interest that automatically binds a purchaser of land even if the interest is not explicitly recorded on the title to the land. 

The Land Registration Act 2002 sought to reform the law so that, from October 2013, chancel repair liability was no longer deemed to be an overriding interest and could only bind a property if protected by a notice registered against the title to the property.

The prevailing view therefore was that if a property's title made no mention of chancel repair liability - especially if that property had changed hands after October 2013 - then a buyer would acquire the property free from this liability.

However, various complex legal questions subsequently arose about the nature of chancel repair liabilities, which cast doubt on whether the 2002 reforms actually applied to chancel repair liability as originally intended.

Consequently, buyers still routinely obtain chancel repair searches and indemnity insurance policies, even when no liability is recorded against the property's title. 

What is the Law Commission proposing?

After many years the Law Commission is seeking to resolve this uncertainty.  It's intention is to confirm without doubt that chancel repair liability is not binding on purchasers of registered land unless the liability is recorded on the title register.  

They even suggest that this should apply retrospectively so that any property which has been bought and sold since October 2013 and which does not have any chancel repair liability noted against its title will conclusively be free of such liability. 

While these reforms will simply confirm what many practitioners believed to be the case since October 2013, having clarity on this issue will come as a relief to conveyancers and should put end to unnecessary chancel repair searches and insurance policies.

The background and commentary is of course much more complex than the brief summary outlined above, and a copy of the consultation paper and further details can be found here for more information.

If you would like to know more about these proposed reforms or have any questions relating to chancel repair liability, please contact Rory Young.