There are 3 current methods or combinations thereof to establish if chancel repair liability exists:

1. By checking whether an interest has been registered in the title of the property.

This was so in the case of Aston Cantlow Parochial Church Council v Wallbank. However, this only establishes if the interest has been registered but not if there is an overriding interest. This still leaves unanswered the question of liability regarding pre 1836 corn rents, owners of former glebe land, owners of land under an Enclosure Award Act, and owners of land where the tithe or rent charge has been merged.

2. By carrying out a full search in The National Archives at Kew.

These are costly, approximately £120, time consuming, and often inconclusive as the records are incomplete and hard to interpret. If the search is conclusive it still leaves unanswered the question of liability regarding pre 1836 corn rents, owners of former glebe land, and owners of land under an Enclosure Award.

3. By carrying out an electronic search to establish if the land/property is within a historic parish boundary with potential chancel repair liability.

There are, however, 3 issues with this method.

i. If the result of the search is that the property/land is not in a historic parish with potential liability it still leaves unanswered the question of liability regarding pre 1836 corn rents, owners of glebe land, and owners of land under an Enclosure Act.

ii. These searches rely upon the accuracy of the historic parish boundaries. The boundaries are based upon the Tithe Map which were created as a result of the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836. These cannot be relied upon as only 1/6th of the Tithe maps, see below, were stamped by the government as accurate enough to use and some were never even finished.

Extract from The National Archives - Tithe Records Domestic Information Research Guide 41, Section 9. Tithe Maps (IR 30)

When the 1836 Act was amended in the following year, a provision was inserted to the effect that, whilst every tithe map should be signed by the Commissioners, a map or plan should not be deemed evidence of the quantity of the land, or treated as accurate, unless it was sealed as well as signed by the Commissioners. Approximately 1,900 only of the tithe maps - about one-sixth of the whole - were sealed by the Tithe Commissioners, and it is these alone - called first-class maps - which can be accepted as accurate. The unsealed (or second-class) maps constitute a very mixed collection - indeed, some are little more than topographical sketches.

It is unnecessary to discuss in detail the problems of interpreting a tithe map; but it is well to bear in mind that reliance cannot be placed upon the area of individual tithe areas stated in an apportionment or computed from the tithe map, unless the map is sealed.

iii. They ONLY search against the ADDRESS-POINT (a grid coordinate) of the subject building and NOT the delineated property/land boundary. Much of the glebe and tithed land has been developed over the hundreds of years and the approximate 116,000 linear probably dissect millions of new property/land boundaries making grid coordinate based searches ineffective. The larger the area the more likely this will happen.


Comments from the Law Society, below, which can be helpful with the above.

Chancel Repair Liability - A Law Society Submission October 2006

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.


Conclusion and solution

Current methods to establish whether chancel repair liability exists may be inconclusive, due to incomplete information, inaccurate data and failure to cover all types of chancel repair liability. As a result they may not give 100% protection to the property or landowner.

The only solution for 100% protection against chancel repair liability is ChancelNSR


You can register online to begin using ChancelNSR, or for more information contact us here