What is Chancel Liability?
This is the liability of a property owner to contribute to the cost of repair of the chancel (or steeple) of a church. It dates back to medieval times when the local parish church owned large tracts of land. It would sell off land within its parish on the condition that the purchaser contributed some or all of the cost of chancel repairs in future. These chancel repair liabilities were not always formally recorded by way of a deed since they pre-date the development of the conveyancing system we know today and they were largely forgotten about for many years, until the introduction of the Land Registration Act 2002. Under the act all chancel repair obligations have to be registered at land registry by 2012, otherwise they cease to be enforceable. This has led to the church scouring its archives to find instances where obligations exist and having them registered.
