Greg Yerbury

Put a new post up about Chancel repair liability (here) a bit geeky but more or less I suggest that it is at least possible that the Deadline date of October 13th to register was incorrect and new householders could buy a place that has the liability. and there is a need for a court case or a change in the law to make to make it clear.

One of those slightly odd things is that if a PCC withdraws the notice of liability no one may know because no one has tell anyone....

I have just noted there is another part of my lecture located

For all those who interested I keep a very geeky blog on CRL http://chancelrepairliability.blogspot.co.uk and part of one of lectures is found on and another part . It is not that exciting to say the least.

They are answerable to no one other than the annual Annual meeting and the charity commission and they have to abide to various church regulations. To have a say at the AGM a person has to be on the electoral role and anyone can apply to be on the electoral role if they either live in the parish or attend church on a least a monthly basis but they must fill out a form before a certain prescribed date which varies from parish to parish. The first part of the meeting for election of the wardens is open to everyone if they are either on the church electoral role or on the local register of local government elector whilst the bulk of the meeting is only for those on the electoral role.

I am afraid he has no power to do anything it is absolutely in the power of the local PCC as a result of Charity law and the way the CofE works. Apparently the archbishop has written a supportive letter to one landowner owner who had a tiny amount of liability but I would imagine he is mostly unaware of the distress the issue is causing and how widespread it is.

The irony being the only way to permanently remove the liability is to speak to the CofE in some way. I think if I was stuck in the quandary I would write to the to the relevant archbishops office (after checking the small print from the insurance company) who is completely detached from the situation and ask them to explain why this is happening and outline the pain it has caused to and ask for their advice.

The Church of England is a large organisation with thousands of people and hundreds of different legal entities making one vaguely related body with a whole range of opinions and so the question is unanswerable. I have been involved in two places where parishes have registered the liability on another part of the Church of England one of which was a penniless trust lumbering the trustees with the liability.

The only way to remove the liability is to offer to compound it via the diocese. It should be noted there are only two recorded instances of an ordinary people ever paying out for a chancel Mrs Croxford in 1935 and Mr and Mrs Wallbank. Organisations such as Eton College, various rich Landed families and the largest organisation paying out for around 1000 chancels is the Church Commissioners all of which becasme wealthy as a result of the tithes to which the liability attached. They pay for a variety or reasons mostly because of the terms of the 1936 tithe act, some because they still own the liable land and in a number of instances when the land was sold of in the nineteenth or early twentieth century the new owners insisted on a permanent indemnity being give to them by the previous owners.On the most part Chancel repair liability is quite harmless and obscure. The terrible issues that have arisen is because of parliaments ill considered amendment of the law which could have been changed in a different way, weak national guidance from the CofE of what to do, In some instances a lack of help from Dioceses and PCC's being out of their depth and some solicitors not having much of a clue

A question that I didn't answer was how much it costs to compound the liability well it is certain that to compound the entire chancel of Aston Cantlow was £36,500 which finally paid the liability off allowing the Wallbanks to sell their land liability free. This £36,500 was for an entire chancel in good condition. If there were 500 acres of non apportioned liable land and someone owned 1 acre a reasonable figure to pay the liability off would be around £80 but how easy or difficult this would be depends on the diocese and the PCC and the state of the chancel. It is possible to pay partial liabilities off despite what may be read to contrary since people were paying partial liabilities off prior to the courts deciding that chancel repair liability was several.

There are two types of liability one where it is apportioned which the most common one and is the type found in Stottesdon and essentially the only way out is for the PCC to rescind it or for the land owner to approach the Diocesan board of Finance to offer to compound it. Each Diocese approaches this differently and I think this is a significant issue since a national policy would make it clear. The other form of liability such as the Wallbank is where the liability is held severally with all the land owners whether the liability is actually a registrable liability is a moot point but assuming it is there is an additional way forward. With a several several liability one land owner once registered has an interest in another land owners land so arguably they can also register the liability to reduce their own liability. So if a PCC registered against land owner A but declined to register against landowner B for what ever reason landowner A may be able to register the liability on landowner's B land. This is a grey area but I have heard rumours that provisionally this has been accepted by the Land Registry. The only ways forward I can see is to offer to compound the liability, wait for the PCC to change it's mind or possibly register on another land owner's land to reduce your own liability

The Lordship of the manors have normally very little to do with mineral rights although they can be related but not often. It is the weird way in which land could be sold where land could be above the ground can be divorced from the land above. I have a friend who has discovered that the mineral rights to his fairly average p[property are owned by the coal board and the manorial rights (to hunt and to fish) are owned by some obscure company based in jersey.

Well a piece of dodgy reporting since all petroleum and gas is invested in the Crown by the Petroleum Act of 1934 and so fracking is unlikely to benefit the church.

Dear Bumpy the record of ascertainments only dealt with the liabilities that were left over in 1936. The records for Braughing can be found by googling 'braughing inclosure award' which shows on the national archive website there are two copies of the award. Alternatively you could use the enclosure plan search engine and put Braughing into it and it shows one with a different reference number suggesting there are three copies two in Hertfordshire record office and one in Cambridgeshire record office.. You asked about online records well if you searched 'Cheshire tithe maps' f you will come up with the tithe maps of that county and if the record of ascertainments were downloaded from the national archives for the correct parish a person could see precisely which plots were liable for apportioned liability.

We have debated the issue of difficulty of finding the liabilities which are virtually all in public archives but not necessarily that easy to access or easy to understand. There are some records that are totally public with the maps on the net to the extent people who know what they are looking for can tell which plot and fields are liable and by looking at any online map can see which houses are liable today.