Buyers solicitors have sent a letter with some requests that are flummoxing me. Please help.

[tiredemma]

have just got in from work to find a letter requesting (amongst other things)-

"Confirmation that either you hold a Chancel Repair Liability Indemnity Policy or are prepared to make an allowance for one in the sum of ....."

I dont have a clue what they are on about.

also asking for full details of the extension in my kitchen ie copies of consents relating to this-

The extension was already here when we moved in- where would I get the details regarding consents?????

This moving house lark is making me grey with stress

Are you not represented by your own solicitor? - Make them earn their crust by dealing with these requests!!

Have you spoken to your solicitor? I don't know what that is either. There should have been planning consents given when your extension was built - you should have got those when you bought the place.

It's a nightmare isn't it? I cannot exchange on mine because FENSA didn't send the certificate for a window I had replaced last year and it's going to take them 10 days to send it. The bloody thing is only 1ft square, cost under £200 to buy and install and there about about 20 more windows in the flat, none of which have certificates and guarantees and would cost a lot more to replace.

I want to mainline gin frankly

The letter has come via my solicitor- he has asked me to answer them!!

As far as I know the chancel repair indemnity is an insurance policy where your house falls in the parish of a church and is to cover repairs to the chancel of said church http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel_repair_liability see here

Agree your solicitor should be dealing with this

I think the chancel repair question is to do with whether your ownership of your property means you are liable to repair the local church when needed, or that you are insured against such an occurrence.

tell your solicitor to get off his/her arse and earn his/her fee

How long have you owned the house?

Chancel Repair Liability - if you have lived there more than 5 years it's unlikely it was considered when you bought it as it's only become an issue of late (google chancel repair Wallbanks for the full story). It's unlikely you have insurance, but I would refuse to provide it as it's an insurable risk against which the buyers can protect themselves if they wish. If you bought more recently, there may be insurance with the deeds in which case the solicitor should know about it.

Similarly with the extension - if it was built more than 4 years ago planning isn't an issue. You may still need a Building Regulations Certificate though, which should have been provided when you bought it.

Did the same solicitors act for you when you bought the house? If so, ring them and ask them to get their old file out. That should have all the answers.

yes, tyour solicitor should do the chancel repair libility thing in their search - the ones that you've paid search fees for.

thanks everyone

Have sent my solictitor an email telling him to deal with it. I will liaise tomorrow with the solicitors we used when we purchased the house to see if they have the extension stuff

IMHO Chancel searches and liability insurance is a con. The only company offering searches is the same company that provides insurance so, surprise, surprise, most searches come back saying that there may be a liability. Even if you do have a liability the chance of you ever having to pay anything is pretty much zero unless it is mentioned in your deeds.

...and it's the buyer's problem, not yours, so they shouldn't be expecting you to pay for it.

There was a case a few years ago - around 5 years

where the couple inherited a house and a chancel agreement wiht the church that had been set up around 400 years ago was brought out and used 9in probably the worng context) but that beside

the couple had to sell the hosue as the church order the repairs to be done - the case took a couple of years of wrangling in court aswell.

You can check with the county archive record office for chancel

The same for the extention - or the council, but the council may have lodged the palns with the county archive

you can go and do the research yourself and would be a lot cheaper than giving bak to your solicotr - who will send a junior who is ususally clueless any way - so do the work yourself

In that case the liability was explicitly mentioned in the deeds. This has been the only case of the church ever calling in a liability and was only possible because it was written into the deeds.

I did the research when we bought our house last year and found that even if we had a liability the church is very unlikely to call it in. If they do call it in then the liability would be spread over all the properties in the area and is calculated by some archaic formula which means the amount you'll pay is tiny (in the order of tens of pounds).

Don't pay for a chancel search because the company that does them has a vested interest in finding that you have a liability as they sell the insurance.

Chancel liability is if the local church decide they need a new roof and call on local householders to pay for it! Rare but it has happened. Indemnity is usually quite cheap but in most cases not neccessary.

You can say that the info about your extension isn't know. That's all you can do.

The house I'm buying doesn't have chancel repair insurance - do I really need it? I'm in an area where I could be made to pay but given there are no churches within a 1/2 mile radius and 90% of the houses are quite old (so presumably also liable) wouldn't we just share the cost?

I'm not sure it works like that, LadyBiscuit; I think the chancel repair liability went onto houses associated with the local church - a rectory would be an obvious example. It is quite rare though, and churches that have tried to enforce it have ended up with extremely bad publicity. Surely the easiest thing to do is to check with local churches which owners of particular homes are liable rather than create an industry selling pointless insurance schemes.

No, you don't need it. Chancel liability insurance is a scam. Unless you have a specific liability mentioned in the deeds you won't be asked to contribute to church repairs.

I think it's a scam too nocake. My house was built in 1921 and has never been connected to a church.

Personally I think it's entirely possible there is an industry entirely founded on selling insurance you don't need lalalonglegs!

The only reason it's been included in the papers is that the house is 'within the boundary of the parish'. Well presumably most houses are within the parish boundary!

Building Regs and Planning Consent are available from your local council - we needed these for a recent sale and purchase. Most of them were on line and the others the council produced in response to a letter from our solicitor. Worth checking with your council - they should have a web site.

I looked up the exact references myself to speed things up. Solicitors seem to try to avoid doing any work especially if they have agreed a fixed fee.

I have had similar queries on my sale, my solicitor raised the things with me and said that if I didn't know it wasn't a problem. I even had a query as to whether the chimney was strong enough to support TV aerial! I am hardly going up a ladder, I just sent the solicitor my receipt from when it was installed and said my buyers can look into that themselves!

For what it's worth my solicitor blamed a lot of these silly queries on the difficulty in getting a mortgage these days, she said everyone is being ultra cautious they don't want any risk at all.

The Chancel Repair subject came up for us too. We just said we were "prepared to take a risk" and refused to pay indemnity insurance. We're miles from the nearest church!