The owner of any property, however small, in England or Wales, can be liable in certain circumstances to pay for repairs to the chancel of a medieval parish church in his locality. Until a recent case decided in the House of Lords led to a farmer and his wife being called on to pay a GBP95,000 bill, many property owners, conveyancers and parochial church councils had ignored this apparently remote corner of the law. Now, especially as a result of the Land Registration Act 2002, chancel repair liability has become a live issue.

The need for searches to establish whether any particular land may be affected is increasingly recognised. This book - the first of its kind - provides practical information on how to make these searches. It does not set out to be a legal textbook, but to enable lawyers, laymen and churchmen to understand the background and sources of information available so that they can discover so far as is possible when, and to what extent, liability may exist.

A Foreword by Dr R Sturt, Diocesan Registrar of Canterbury, endorses its value not only for people who plan to do their own research, but as a mine of information for professionals, parochial church councils and amateur historians