What is a Chancel Liability search?
Chancel repair liability affects medieval churches and properties located within the parish of a medieval Church. The reason that this is now significant is due to the decline in Churchgoers. There are not enough contributions being made to Church funds and as a result the Church has had to look to other means of obtaining money for repairs. In addition there have been some recent court cases where people living on what was previously rectoral land were forced to pay many thousands of pounds for the upkeep of the chancel of their parish Church, which had fallen into disrepair. It is almost impossible to tell whether a property is affected by the liability to contribute to chancel repair unless a detailed search of historical data is carried out in the National Archive. Where a property is burdened by this liability, then an overriding interest exists in favour of the Church. Because of the new Land Registration Act 2002, all overriding interests have to be registered before 2013 but if
