A chancel is the space around the altar of a church for the clergy and sometimes the choir.

There are 15,000 parishes in England, out of those 5,200 are at risk from chancel repair liability. Chancel repair liability benefits pre-reformation churches in England and Wales. It allows the church council of the parish to require the owners of former rectorial land to pay for the repair of the church chancel.

Because the chancel of a church was the area where the parish priest or rector, officiated, the duty of repairing the chancel of an ancient parish church fell on the owner of property attached to the rectory.

It is important to know that such rectorial land was, and is not, necessarily situated in close proximity to a church building.

Also known as a chancelcheck search, the parish liability search is a low cost alternative to the chancel repair search, designed to inform the legal profession if the property is within one of the 5,200 parishes where there continues to be a potential for chancel repair liability. Most companies offering the parish liability searches can offer an insurance policy if the property falls within a parish that could be liable.

The alternative is a chancel repair search, which is designed to highlight whether a individual property that is proposing to purchase may be affected by a potential 'chancel repair' obligation to the local parish church. This differs from a parish liability search (this is not specific to the property, but the parish).

Chancel repairs stem from medieval times, where the church was granted powers to charge rectorial property for the upkeep of the chancel of the parish church. Potential any property located within the boundaries of a Parish where such a liability exists could be 'caught'.