The Chancel Repairs Act 1932 (22 & 23 Geo. V c.20) is an Act of Parliament

Act of Parliament

An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...

 of the Parliament of the United Kingdom

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

 that reasserts and imposes a chancel repair liability

Chancel repair liability

Chancel repair liability is a liability on some property owners in England and Wales to fund repairs to the chancel of their local church. This responsibility of owners of once rectorial land exists in perpetuity....

 on the owners of certain real property

Real property

In English Common Law, real property, real estate, realty, or immovable property is any subset of land that has been legally defined and the improvements to it made by human efforts: any buildings, machinery, wells, dams, ponds, mines, canals, roads, various property rights, and so forth...

.

The Act moved jurisdiction

Jurisdiction

Jurisdiction is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility...

 from the ecclesiastical court

Ecclesiastical court

An ecclesiastical court is any of certain courts having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. In the Middle Ages in many areas of Europe these courts had much wider powers than before the development of nation states...

s to the County Court

County Court

A county court is a court based in or with a jurisdiction covering one or more counties, which are administrative divisions within a country, not to be confused with the medieval system of county courts held by the High Sheriff of each county.-England and Wales:County Court matters can be lodged...

s.

The law was upheld in the case of Aston Cantlow PCC v. Wallbank [2003] UKHL 37. The House of Lords re-asserted that the liability, thought by many to be anachronistic, persisted in English law

English law

English law is the legal system of England and Wales, and is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countries and the United States except Louisiana...

. It had been declared by the Court of Appeal to be contrary to Article 1 of the First Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights

European Convention on Human Rights

The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is an international treaty to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by the then newly formed Council of Europe, the convention entered into force on 3 September 1953...

http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2001/713.html&query=Aston+Cantlow&method=titleall.

Though repeal

Repeal

A repeal is the amendment, removal or reversal of a law. This is generally done when a law is no longer effective, or it is shown that a law is having far more negative consequences than were originally envisioned....

 has been recommended both by the Law Commission

Law Commission

A Law Commission or Law Reform Commission is an independent body set up by a government to conduct law reform; that is, to consider the state of laws in a jurisdiction and make recommendations or proposals for legal changes or restructuring...

 in its 1985 report http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc8586/hc00/0039/0039.pdf and General Synod of the Church of England

General Synod of the Church of England

The General Synod is the deliberative and legislative body of the Church of England. The synod was instituted in 1970, replacing the Church Assembly, and is the culmination of a process of rediscovering self-government for the Church of England that had started in the 1850s.- Church Assembly: 1919...

, only limited reform will be brought in in 2013 under the Land Registration Act 2002

Land Registration Act 2002

The Land Registration Act 2002 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which repealed and replaced previous legislation governing land registration, in particular the Land Registration Act 1925, which governed an earlier, though similar, system...

as amended by the Land Registration Act 2002 (Transitional Provisions)(No 2) Order 2003 [3].