PROPERTY sold after this weekend will be free of any liability
for repairs to medieval and earlier church chancels unless the
right has been registered by the relevant PCC.
Chancel-repair liability (CRL) arose under Henry VIII's church
reforms, when rectorial land was transferred to secular landowners
together with an obligation to fund repairs to a chancel. The
obligation remained tied to the land as an "overriding
interest".
In 1994, Gail and Anthony Wallbank took legal action to fight a
£95,000 bill to repair the chancel at St John the Baptist, Aston
Cantlow, in Warwickshire (News, 2 October
2009). They lost the case, but, in response, the Government
passed legislation giving churches ten years to register CRL rights
with the Land Registry. That deadline falls this weekend.
Churches will still be able to register the liability on a
property, but only if it has not been sold after midnight on
Saturday night. CRL will be unenforceable on any land sold after
that date, unless the liability has been registered before its
sale.
The Land Registry estimates that 89 PCCs have lodged 601
applications to register CRL against registered land, and 95
cautions against first registration of unregistered land. Legal
advice from the Church of England warned PCC members that they
could be personally liable if they failed to protect the church
assets by registering the liability.
Earlier this year, in response to a campaign by Peter Luff, MP
for Mid Worcestershire, the Charity Commission revised its guidance
in order to make it clear that PCCs could legitimately decide not
to register CRL if they believed that doing so would harm their
mission and ministry.
The process continues to attract complaints. Last month, the PCC
of Crowle with Bredicot, in Worcestershire, wrote to affected
homeowners giving notice of intended registration.
One homeowner, Judith Holden, replied that registration would
"make it impossible for me to sell my property. I have no income
beyond my pension. I have no assets beyond my house. I could not
raise finance on my property to satisfy any future claim the PCC
may make."
Saturday's deadline applies not just to CRL, but to all
overriding interests, including manorial and mineral-extraction
rights. The Church Commissioners hold mineral interests in more
than 500,000 acres across England. The Commissioners' chief
surveyor, Joseph Cannon, said that the process of registration
"does not create any new rights or interests, and is confined to
researching and properly registering and defending the
Commissioners' existing rights and interests".
