How the Church of England is increasing your conveyancing costs

First, some history. Many many years ago, the Church, which had extensive landholdings purchased from tithes extorted from the community and money given to it by people foolish enough to believe that their souls could be saved by bribery, created the office of lay rector. The lay rector occupied land or lands in the parish, and in consideration of his office, undertook to maintain the chancel, or main structure, of the church. The liability was charged on the land and has been carried forward over the years, although in most cases it has been forgotten about, and no evidence of the liability exists on the Deeds.

Maintaining the chancel of a church is no light affair. A few years ago, a couple got a bill for just under £100,000 out of the blue to repair a church that had been neglected for many years by its congregation. An assiduous parish clerk had done some historical research, and 'bingo', the church was in the money and the couple financially ruined. Nice, eh?

Since this time, practitioners have been looking for solutions. It is possible, for around £120, to undertake a search of the existing records at the National Archives in Kew. These are not conclusive but they are a good guide. Alternatively, a number of companies have set up databases which check if the property is in an effected parish. For £11.75 you can check this, and then for a further £50-£100, if there is a potential risk, you can insure against it.

So either way, given that there are 1.7m property transactions in England and Wales each year, the total cost of chancel searches and insurance could amount to £100m per annum. This is, I suggest, enough to repair a lot of churches, should such a thing be socially desirable.

You might ask why it is that this liability could be allowed not to be detectable. The answer is that when Land Registration was introduced, between 1862 and 1925, the Government did not want to "take on" the Church, so they agreed that this liability would be an "overriding interest". When the Land Registration Act 2002 was passed, the issue came up again. The Government could have said to the Church that in the 470 or so years since the Reformation there had been enough time to isolate who had to pay and who didn't; but instead they provided a "cut off" date of 2013 before which the Church had to register their rights or lose them. This is better than nothing, but the Church has now issued instructions to its Parish Councils to sniff around looking for people to lumber with liability.

I happen to think that this is quite disgusting. An amount equal to the cost of 4 new secondary schools a year is being sucked out of the system in insurance costs because of the avarice of a failing institution supported by a small minority of the population. If the Church is successful in registering its rights, then potentially a lot of properties will be unsaleable, causing a further cost to society.

If you agree this is an outrage, why not write to the Church and complain. This is the web page of their contacts. http://www.cofe.anglican.org/contact/feedback/

This is a picture of their Web Master to cheer you up.