Abolish Chancel Repair Liability

What is a PCC? Googled it but nothing seemed appropriate.

The Last para of that article is illogical

"Is it right that the Church of England continues to benefit from this historic liability?

The Church of England has financial responsibility for 45% of the nation's Grade 1 listed buildings and many other architecturally important churches. 70% of repair bills are met by local fundraising, with only a minority coming from English Heritage, lottery funds and other non-church sources. This places a considerable financial burden on PCCs, which largely rely on voluntary giving to support their work. Against that background, the Church cannot be expected to forego sources of funding to which it is entitled unless it receives adequate compensation. "

Why should the church receive compensation because of monastries "acquiring rectories" long ago? It can be expected to forego such funding. I realise this is not its expectation. That's why the arcane law needs to be changed.

Why has the CofE financial responsibility for 45% of grade 1 listed buildings? Does that have anything to do with its owning them?

You obviously don't understand NSS aims either jings. Hey ho.

PCC - Parochial Church Council. Elected body responsible for the church and its mission in every English parish of the CoE.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parochial_church_council. Given the amount of time you spend going on about the church and its members, bags, you don't seem to know much about its reality.

And if you read the link posted by jingl you will see that the law has already been modified and that the situation before was much more complex than suggested by the petition.

I though it might mean that, lily, but I couldn't quite think of the right words. I got the parochial (well, parish anyway) and the council bits. Why should I know the exact words? I have no connections whatsoever to the Church of England and never have had. Do you know all the equivalents for other religions? I understood the gist. I asked for the exact words. Stop being so critical of me, lily.

I read jings link too, and commented on parts of it. Of course it's complicated. That's the problem! It needs to be simplified for the modern world where we are not all beholden to the state church and its possessions.

Thank you for telling me exactly what PCC stood for.

I meant the issue was more complex. It should not have been presented as a simple matter of some unfortunate house/landowners suddenly finding that the local church on a whim was demanding thousands off them to repair some local building that was nothing to do with them. And I repeat that you feel free to make comments and observations about an institution and its members about which you acknowledge you know very little.

Because it is the state church and some of its actions, and as an institution, it has direct effects on my life. Of course I'm allowed to comment on it and criticise it to hell if I want to! If it were a private matter and kept itself to itself and didn't infiltrate every school and lots of other places where I (and many others) don't think it should infiltrate, I'd shut up. No, actually, I can't promise that, because if other people suffered injustices, then I might comment on those too. Just as people who aren't catholics comment on the child abuse stories that come out of that.

And just as anyone anywhere can comment on injustices and ancient laws that should be abolished. For goodness sake, lily! Do stop making such ridiculous, accusatory, nasty remarks.

It's high time this ancient law was abolished.We became aware of it some time ago, and as the house we now live in is next to an old church, took out insurance at the same time, but as others have said, it could also affect a housing estate about a mile away. Not sure how hard the church would push people to pay, but at the same time, why do we have to pay the insurance?

I think my view is that if these Grade 1 listed buildings are accessible to the public then perhaps some public funding should be made available for their upkeep, albeit from the lottery fund (heritage), not from tax.

I for one would not like to see our old buildings decay and fall down, that is why I am a member of the National Trust.

If we lose our past we have no sense of who we are and how we arrived there imo.

We have obviously looked into this, as we live next door to a church, and it truly does seem that the church could demand thousands from its neighbours - or indeed hundreds of thousands if you are very unlucky.

As I said before, the law has been amended and any diocese that has failed to register a neighbouring property as being liable to the tax before October 2013 has lost its chance. Our local PCC took the decision not to register any properties - this may of course have something to do with the fact that the person living in the church house immediately by the church was the PCC treasurer!

The principle that a religious (or indeed any other) institution can demand money from neighbours (and the definition of neighbouring properties is quite broad) is totally abhorrent and undemocratic - and indeed entirely mad. That this still remains enshrined in law is what the petition seeks to deal with - and quite right too. If the law is to retain the respect of society (upon which it relies for its smooth functioning) then statutes like this must go.

Lilygran I don't know why you think thatbags is attacking the church
not at all in my view, just stating what most of us feel, about an old law that not everyone is aware of and can cost money.The upkeep of C of E churches should be paid by the C of E congregations, and we all know that the Church has vast amounts of money.The state can step in to help, English Heritage, lottery funds etc, but individual people should not have to cough up.

The CoE may appear to be rich but has considerable demands on its income; to pay everyone who works for the church, support local and national activities, pay pensions and the cost of vicarages and so on. This wasn't a wicked plan devised by the modern Church, it was a hangover from hundreds of years ago when people who bought some land that had previously belonged to the church undertook to pay towards repairs of the church building as part of the deal. Lots of people find to their dismay that a property they have bought has historic or traditional costs attached (or sometimes, something they like like being 'Lord of the Manor'). This kind of thing should be discovered by the purchaser's solicitor. 'The state' or the tax payer only contributes very rarely in the case, for example, of an iconic cathedral which is regarded as part of the national heritage. All the costs of your English parish church building whether 12th or 19th or even 20th century, are paid by the congregation. That congregation also contributes to the general costs of the diocese. The same applies to all religions in this country. They aren't supported out of taxes!

When we bought our house , we were told that the chancel repair tax would never come to anything. I didn't think anymore about it until the case came up in the papers. I then became very anxious about it, until we managed to find an insurance.Why should ordinary people ( we are not rich)have to lose sleep over an archaic law (in your words a hangover from hundreds of years ago). Our house is an ex 1970 s vicarage,not a Georgian rectory. Presumably the church wished to make money from selling it , to the previous owners, so why entail some ridiculous clause about the upkeep of the church.

Perhaps we should not have bought the house...perhaps nobody should have bought it. Where would the church be then?

I'm sorry you have had so much worry over this and I agree entirely that it isn't reasonable to expect individuals to pay for the upkeep of a church they have no connection with. You now have insurance but it may be that your PCC has deliberately failed to register the right as many, if not most, have. The church wardens should know or failing that, the diocesan registrar.

Atqui your solicitor couldn't have been very good otherwise he would have advised you to purchase an insurance policy, ours wouldn't let us proceed with our house until we did.

Here is the principle - it is utterly wrong that any institution should have the right to demand money from its neighbours. There is no way this can be justified and the law must go.

Solicitors should not be in the position of having to research this (with the consequent extra cost to their clients) because the law should not exist at all.

Discussions as to how rich or otherwise the CofE is are irrelevant.

I also object most strongly to insurance companies cashing in on this piece of nonsense.

Ninny and Mishap, ...Absoloutely!

Mishap there are lots of covenants and restrictions on lots of land and other real estate. Repealing the laws on church glebe land might be a good idea but it won't solve everyone's problems.

Let's just make a start by signing this petition.

Just because it might not solve everyone's problems does not mean it is not the right thing to do.

Thank you all for your interest.