Chancel repair liability

Chancel repair liability is a legal obligation on some property owners in England and Wales to pay for certain repairs to a church which may or may not be the local parish church.

Where people own property within land that was once rectorial (part of a rectory or glebe), they may have wittingly or unwittingly acquired a responsibility to fund repairs to the chancel of the medieval-founded Church of England parish church or Church in Wales church which that glebe land supported. This can still be invoked by the church council of some parishes.

It is currently common practice for purchasers of land to check whether the local parish includes a church where such a liability may apply, and if so to take out chancel liability insurance.

From pre-Reformation times, churches in England and Wales have been ministered by either a vicar, who received a stipend (salary), or a rector or parson who received tithes from the parish. The rectors (of around 5,200 churches) were responsible for the repairs of the chancel of their church, while the parish members were responsible for the rest of the building. Monasteries and Oxford and Cambridge colleges could buy or receive rectorships, and thus become liable for chancel repairs. When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and sold their rectory (with land), or the relevant university college sold this, the chancel repair liability passed with that land and persists today, even after subdivision. The owners of such land are thus equally called lay impropriators or lay rectors.

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Wikipedia