House Moving advice - Legal?

[stevieb]

I am currently in the house buying Process, but my solicitor is advising me to pay £100 in insurance fees to cover Chacel Repairs.

Is it worth paying this premium?? as i do not see any benifit from it.

has anyone else got a view on this?

Thanks

steve

[clarkey]

This is standard advice now.
It depends on where your property is - are there hundreds of other houses near the church, or just yours? I didn't bother paying it in my last house; my solicitor said fairly few people bother to take out the insurance as the risk of a claim is so tiny.

[stevieb]

There is a whole estate of around 1000 houses,

but on my road around 150 house

[Muncher]

Have you seen the results of a chancel search?

If something has been flagged up by a search, I would personally pay it. I recall one of the cases where someone got stung by it, they got a bill of £80k...

If you pay it, the risk disappears.

[stevieb]

The results state that you may be within the boundary of chancel and maybe subject to pay for the upkeep of the chancel within your boundary.. or something like that.. the words are very loose...

[Muncher]

www.speedsearchltd.co.uk/chancel-repair-searches/index.html - Full search costs alone are £100+VAT

On that basis it's cheapest to insurance against it being enforced and never be concerned about it again. If you don't, you will always have a nagging thought that you could get a five or six figure bill out of the blue.

[Muncher]

The Churches have until 2013 to identify any Chancel repair rights it has before the law changes, therefore the chances of it being enforced are probably not quite as remote as you may think.

[Piglet]

I'd take the insurance. A former colleague of mine unearthed a house with responsibility for repair to Ely Cathedral!!