Law Society Comments
Extract from: Chancel Repair Liability - A Law Society Submission October 2006, Sections 21 & 22
21. A commercial searching service has been established. However, it necessarily suffers from the limitations imposed by the incompleteness of the records. A routine search, described as "a low cost screening report" - for which the charge is £10 plus VAT – only addresses the question whether the property falls within a parish where there is chancel repair liability. Even within a parish where the liability exists, the search report does not address the question whether the liability definitely affects the land in question.
22. While a firm negative response (no chancel repair liability) is helpful, it is immediately apparent there are severe limitations with the service it is possible to offer. A property may be within a parish where there is some liability, although it does not affect that particular land, or the parish may be one for which there is no record. We understand that, as a result, a substantial number of search results states that the possibility of liability cannot be ruled out. That does nothing to offer any certainty.
The check needs the historic parish boundaries, which were created as Tithe Map as a result of the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836, to establish whether the property has potential liability cannot be regarded as definitive as only 1/6th of the Tithe maps, see below, were stamped by the government as accurate enough to use. This means they cannot be relied upon.
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