+1 for creative asterisk uses.

It's sitting alongside vim and gcc in my top ten list of "pieces of software that will eventually become so useful, all other software will become obsolete"

Really interested to read all this, we are buying a flat which this has been flagged on so I am currently digging around for the info. I was surprised by M Mathers comment about insurance against this for as litle as £15, but have looked into it further it does appear to be the solution to high costs. Sadly my solicitor had already done the search otherwise I would have just paid the £15 for cover and forgotten all about it, however for peace of mind £15 seems a small price to pay (bearing in mind the cost of a property!).
I have checked out the company on companies house and that the underwritters are registered with the FSA and all seems OK.

My understanding is that the main risk is joint and several liability. In other words the church need only chase the owner of one property -and there may be hundreds liable- and leave the owners of the property with the impossible task of recovering the money from the rest. Does the insurance cover the risk of the whole(and potentially unrecoverable) repair cost or only the bit applicable to a particular property? And does the "church/trustees" have the requirement to ensure that they list every liable property ( by 2013) so that in the worst case individual liability is small.

This is why I let William go to the lagoon.

If people want to get rid of this, it's the politicians who have to do it! Not the Church of England.

Chancel repair liability can only be abolished by Civil law.

And the PCCs who ask for this money are not "self-serving supernaturalists", who are legally bound by charitable status to pursue the best financial interests of their charitable body.

A number of commentators appear to have misunderstood the scale of the problem.

It is correct that every property in England is within a Church of England parish, but not all parishes will have a chancel repair liability.

Very broadly, this will only apply in parishes which existed before the Reformation, so any new parish created since then (and a lot were created in the 18th and 19th centuries) will not have any liability.

Various estimates exist, including the estimate that 5,200 parishes are affected, out of about 16,000. Even then not all the land in these parishes carries the liability, only certain land (as discussed in earlier comments).

Another estimate is that 3,780,500 acres carry a potential liability, which is roughly 10% of the area of England.

I hope that this might put the issue in context.

As I understand the 2003 Regulations, anyone now owning land subject to chancel repair liability will retain that liability for as long as they own the property, whether or not the liability is registered at the Land Registry.

But on the first sale after 2013, a purchaser will take free of any liability unless it has been registered.

So the need for insurance will vary immensely, but I think that there is a clear conflict of interest in companies who carry out searches also trying to sell the insurance policies.

As an anti-theist I am seething inside about this issue. These self-serving supernaturalists, whether a claim is made or not, continue to selfishly cause mental hurt and anguish to the thousands of people who buy and sell their home. And all over a piles of stone that are now largely ignored by the populus of the 21st century. Someone said this country was secular, it clearly is not, church and state are not seperate. If it were to become secular these anachronisms would be abolished once and for all.

Archery just takes time and practice, but the best thing is just taking part :)

(and the Wallbanks (the famous case) knew (in legal terms) about the liability, as Mrs Wallbanks ancestors had bought the land, and their was specific mention in the deeds that it was subject to chancel repair. Legally speaking, they owned the land in full knowledge of the blight of chancel repair.)

Another point: the "unconfirmed reports" that the church has an army of solicitors working on this. Not true! The Church Commissioners have, I gather, a small team (I think of 2 people!) that is registering the liabilities on the Commissioners' land (which is mainly agricultural), and they are responsible at least in part for over 800 chancels in the country. Registration for a chancel that the Commissioners have no land liability attached to is solely the responsibility of the Parochial Church Council and any solicitors they choose to hire. The Commissioners (again, I'm not 100% sure about this) also have retained the liability for much land that they sold long ago, so your house might be lucky and not be affected after all!

Sorry, one more point(!):
the following links are hugely informative, and can point you in the right direction (also, the book "Chancel Repair Liability: How to Research It" is very good, if a little dull).

http://www.peterboroughdiocesanregistry.co.uk/chancels.html

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/research-guides/chancel-repairs.htm

http://www.stedmundsbury.anglican.org/assets/downloads/governance/DChancelRepairliability-V62.pdf

http://www.stedmundsbury.anglican.org/assets/downloads/yourchurch/DAC/chancel%20repair%20laibility.pdf

Read them all! They are very useful, and hopefully will show you that CRL is not the terrifying demon everyone makes out. With careful research, you will often find that, if any, any liability your property bears will often be neglibly small, if it is ever registered.

Also, you are only safe if the liability has not been registered at the FIRST SALE AFTER 2013. If the registered title does not change hands by, say, 2015, even the liability is NOT registered, it still stands until that land is sold, and it can be registered at any point until sale after the 13th October 2013.

This is, quite frankly, a misleading article. There is a very great deal of misleading information about CRL on the web. Certainly do NOT look at the Wallbanks webpage; they imply that costs of repairs could be up to 3/4 of a million pounds: NOT TRUE! They were billed for around £94,000: a huge amount, certainly, and I can promise you that such a large expenditure in one go is very unusual. They chose to fight against something that is the law, and they lost; that is where the rest of that sum arises.

Don't believe all the horror stories, speak to a competant solicitor, or phone up the diocesan registrar for your area (all registrars are long standing solicitors, whose are responsible for church matters in their area).

I have just been informed by my solicitor that the house I am buying MAY be affected by this. As an atheist I have NO intention of buying an insurance policy or giving the Church of England any money for repairs, I will be taken to prison screaming and cursing them, after all the church of England is one of the richest institutions in the country !! Nearly every letter I recieve is asking for money,I reckon by the time the house purchase is finalised the cost will have gone up by at least another 10%.Its making me ill.

As a solicitor of more years than I care to mention, I hope I can add a bit to clear up a couple of points, and make a couple of suggestions.

The Chancel Check Search is not expensive at around £18, and is definitely worth having. As to mortgagees not requiring Chancel Liability Indemnity Insurance cover in place, more often than not they do require it. You'd frankly be lucky to get a mortgage from a Bank presently without it as a specific requirement in the Instructions to Solicitors/Conveyancers.

The somewhat infamous case that lead to the furore about the issue is Aston Cantlow -v- Wallbank and there are several good summaries available if you Google the case name. There is however much confusion about the issue, which is hardly surprising when you read the average Chancel Search result which contains the following:
"The above building is located within the historical boundary of a tithe district within a parish which continues to have a potential chancel repair liability based upon historical parish boundary data and the relevant Inland Revenue Indices held by the National Archive."

The Wallbank case was decided on very specific and somewhat unusual issues and the chances of individual liability in similar amounts applying in towns and cities must be remote. Having said that, it would probably be verging on if not actually professional negligence if a solicitor advised his client specifically not to consider insurance cover as completely unnecessary with such a search result as above, but there are two points on this:

1 Do your homework, and I suggest you do this yourself. If you want your solicitor to do it, fine, but don't expect him to do it for nothing. What do I mean ? Well, quite simply if you're buying, do some research into the existence of the local parish church. Does it still exist at all, has it been sold off and converted into a restaurant or similar, or has it perhaps even been torn down and completely rebuilt in recent years. I've seen examples of each in recent months, and all in cases where the above wording appeared on the Chancel Search report.

2 If insurance cover is to be taken up, make sure your solicitor, conveyancer or whoever is doing the conveyancing has shopped around for quotes. It is a one off payment, but the premiums available vary considerably. Whoever's acting for you should already know who is likely to be the cheapest. And do get cover to include mortgagees and successors in title, in perpetuity - you won't save much in going for the cheaper purchaser only policy but, as one correspondent pointed out, what does that do for the value of your house if liability is subsequently established ? And no, to answer another correspondent on the point, the solicitor makes nothing from the policy.

I'm scratching the surface a bit on this whole issue as there are many more interesting points, but I hope these help.

As a last thought, you may be lucky and get a clear search report. I have in front of me as I post this a Chancel Certificate stating as follows:
"We hereby certify that, based upon historical parish and tithe district boundaries, third party data, and the relevant documentation found at the National Archives, the property is within a tithe district or Parish that has no record of risk of chancel repair liability."

The client didn't want me to do the search, but the mortgage instructions were specific. £18 well spent I'd say, in that case at least.

Two things which presumably you would hope to avoid!!

Kuwaiti girls do not date archers.