Chancel Repair Liability: How to Research It (Revised ed)

Subjects:

Ecclesiastical Law, Wildy, Simmonds and Hill, Property Law

Contents:

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction How it Came About

Table of Cases

Table of Statutes

Which landowners are liable for chancel repairs today?

Locating and identifying the land

Other preliminary searches:

1.Catalogue search

2.Printinted sources

3.Valuation Office documents;

Who is the rector

Vicars, Perpetual Curates, and chancel repair liability

Liability based upon tithe rentcharge

Records of Ascertainments

Tithe Apportionments

Other sources of liability:

1.Rectorial glebe

2.Enclosure awards allotments of land

3.Enclosure awards corn rents

4.Mergers before commutation

5.Special Apportionments;

Redemptions

Some difficult cases

Quantifying liability

Insuring against chancel repair liability

Compounding for chancel repair liability

Enforcement

The position in Wales

Research plan

Reporting

Finding a researcher

Appendix 1 Relevant documents at the National Archives and County Record Offices

Appendix 2 The Land Registration Act 2002

Appendix 3 Bibliography

Appendix 4 Leading cases

Appendix 5 Specimen documents;

1. Index to Records of Ascertainnients (Devon)

2.Page from the Record of Ascertainments for Chieveley, Berkshire

3.Collective Record of Ascertainments for a number of parishes in Dorset.

4.Opening page of Tithe Apportionment for tithe district of Winterbourne

5.Page of Altered Apportionment for tithe district of Winterbourne

6.Section of tithe map for Bridge Hewick (Ripon parish), Yorkshire

7.Section of enclosure award for hamlet of East Hanney Berks., allotting land depicted in illustration 8 to Sir William Jerningham

8.Section of enclosure map for hamlet of East Hanney, Berks., 1809, showing land allotted to Sir William Jerningham

Index

Wildy's Book of the Month - August 2006

The owner of any property, however small, in England or Wales, can be liable in certain circumstances to pay for repairs to the chancel of a medieval parish church in his locality. Until a recent case decided in the House of Lords led to a farmer and his wife being called on to pay a £95,000 bill, many property owners, conveyancers and parochial church councils had ignored this apparently remote corner of the law. Now, especially as a result of the Land Registration Act 2002, chancel repair liability has become a live issue.

The need for searches to establish whether any particular land may be affected is increasingly recognised. This book — the first of its kind — provides practical information on how to make these searches. It does not set out to be a legal textbook, but to enable lawyers, laymen and churchmen to understand the background and sources of information available so that they can discover so far as is possible when, and to what extent, liability may exist.

A Foreword by Dr R. Sturt, Diocesan Registrar of Canterbury, endorses its value not only for people who plan to do their own research, but as a mine of information for professionals, parochial church councils and amateur historians