10 ms·

In the UK, during the purchase of our house we had to take a "chancel liability insurance", because our freehold once belonced to a rectory, so to protect ourse

by pmlnr 5y ago

In the UK, during the purchase of our house we had to take a "chancel liability insurance", because our freehold once belonced to a rectory, so to protect ourselves from repair liability towards a chapel that has been here for centuries, we had to pay a one-off insurance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel_repair_liability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel_repair_liability Leftover laws are weird things. EDIT: PS: sadly, the legendary, obligatory archery practice - http://www.lordsandladies.org/the-butts.htm http://www.lordsandladies.org/the-butts.htm SFW ; "butt" was the name of an archery range - was removed from the law in England: https://loweringthebar.net/2010/06/do-englishmen-still-have-to-show-up-for-longbow-practice.html https://loweringthebar.net/2010/06/do-englishmen-still-have-...

Accacin 5y ago
Yeah, in a town near the one I grew up in, there's a street called 'Butt Hole Lane'. That made me laugh a lot when I was younger, even when my parents explained to me what the 'Butt' in this context meant.
- peteretep 5y ago
  Could have been worse... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane
toyg 5y ago
Even without going archaic, I had to take insurance when I bought a terrace, because a lease existed on the land at some point but the owning company had dissolved years prior and no lease had been paid for a long time. This is very common in a country (UK) where the State has had strong continuity for several centuries, so land rights and entitlements can be tracked very far back.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  These things really are to extract money and commissions during the property purchase. In most cases there is no issue at all but no-one is going to question paying a few pounds extra on a property purchase "for peace of mind".
  - ajdlinux 5y ago
    When the likelihood of the risk is small, but the potential damage bill could be financially catastrophic, I think it's perfectly rational to buy insurance if the premium is so low.
    - mytailorisrich 5y ago
      Sure. My point is that often the risk is not small, it's non-existent. When I bought my current house my solicitor suggested that the seller should pay for insurance cover for the fact that there was no planning paperwork for a small side extension. Of course I said OK and of course the seller also agreed. But that extension was even shown on the land registry plan and was obviously 20+ years old. Since planning breach action is limited to 4 years there was no chance of any problem. Free money for insurer, commissions, etc.
      - gambiting 5y ago
        So I've done the same when I bought my last house(conservatory built 20 years ago, seller couldn't produce the correct paperwork for it), but the issue wasn't the planning permissions per se, it was that the original builder of the house(Belway) hasn't given permission and they reserve the right to do so for 99 years after construction(even though the house is a freehold now, the entire estate is still Belway's leasehold). So the insurance was against that as well. Like, are the chances of Belway complaining and landing us in legal trouble close to zero? Yes, they are, but like said above - it was £50 and I got the seller to pay for it. When we sell the house I'll do the same just to avoid any bumps in the process because of it.
        mytailorisrich 5y ago
        Hence why I wrote 'often'. There are obviously cases where there is a real, if small, risk. Another thing: You already say that you would be fine paying for the person you will buy the house in the future. However, many indemnity policies run in perpetuity so in principle will still apply and there will be no need to buy a new one.
- darkarmani 5y ago
  In the US there is adverse possession, so if someone openly claims the land (living, using, maintaining, etc) for many years (10-20?), they can end up owning the land. It helps settle minor arguments between property lines where fences existed for 50 years but the true line was not on the fence line.
michaelt 5y ago
Not if you brought the land since 2013: If the church hasn't registered the chancel repair liability in the land's title register, there's no liability. And very few churches registered, judging it a pretty big middle finger to your congregation. Of course, there are plenty of scammers happy to charge you £50 for insurance against an impossibility...
- londons_explore 5y ago
  > Of course, there are plenty of scammers happy to charge you £50 for insurance against an impossibility... Charging money for insurance against an event that is impossible is, i believe, a criminal offence in the UK.
sneak 5y ago
> Leftover laws are weird things. Fun fact: just like this old tax that the Italian residents are unhappy with, every single person that was old enough to vote for their representatives who then voted to ratify the income tax amendment in the USA is now dead. There is no one alive in the USA that was in any way represented in the vote for income tax; conversely everyone that is alive in the US today and is subject to it did not have any input into it: they were simply born into it, unrepresented, just as these Italians were. There is a strong argument for all laws having an expiration date a few years past the expected lifespan of the youngest constituent of the represented population that passed it, otherwise we end up ruled primarily by those long dead, entirely unknown to us, as the laws pile up, amended in perpetuity but never aging out.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- CogitoCogito 5y ago
  Today's voters are capable of electing representatives who could repeal that amendment. It's not like voters are left without recourse.
  - sneak 5y ago
    It appears that elected officials have an extremely strong bias to adding/amending versus repealing/scaling back. I'm not sure the current approach is long-term viable.
    - yunohn 5y ago
      > elected officials have an extremely strong bias to adding/amending versus repealing/scaling back I find this to be a crippling problem of how politics works in modern democracies. Taxes are a great example, because almost every country will increase it, but never decrease it. They’ll think of a 100 new ways to extract taxes, but never remove outdated ones.
      - 5y ago
aclelland 5y ago
Yeah there are a lot of very obscure legal rules that most people aren't aware of or haven't been enforced in many years. Not from as far back but my house was built in the early 1980's and my house deeds include the stipulation that I must maintain a garage attached to the property (so I can't convert it to extra living space) because the local government retain the right to convert the space into a decontamination shelter in the event of chemical, biological or nuclear attack. Had a good chuckle with my lawyer regarding it, don't think I'll be too concerned about where to keep my lawn mower if the city has been nuked.
- folli 5y ago
  In Switzerland, the rule that every house must be constructed with an appropriate fallout shelter has only been relaxed 10 years ago. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-bunker-idUSTRE7B01RP20111201 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-bunker-idUSTRE7B01R...
  - zabzonk 5y ago
    Years ago, I was doing some C++ training for Texas Instruments in Bedford, England. I remarked to the woman running the course how brutalistically ugly their building was. She said it was to prevent damage from earthquakes. Bedford is not exactly famous for these events, and she explained that TI simply had one (possibly quake proof) building designed, and then built the same one all over the world. She may have been pulling my leg, of course.
    - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
      Interesting. I live near the TI HQ in Dallas, so I thought I'd take a peek. The Bedford location apparently still exists as "Bedford Heights," and it does look like a mini TI. The Bedford Heights website does call out the "cyclone-proof roof," which they imported directly from the Dallas HQ blueprints.
      - zabzonk 5y ago
throwaway894345 5y ago
> The word Butt is derived from the Anglo French word 'bouter' meaning to expel. Wow. I suppose that’s the same etymology for “butt” in the anatomological sense?
- bloak 5y ago
  In the Oxford English Dictionary there are 19 separate entries for "butt" with various disparate senses, including a bundle of cloth, a headland, and a funnel-shaped wicker basket. Some of those entries have complex, multiple etymologies, but the word "buttock" is said to be derived from "butt, n.6" for which the etymology is given as: "Of uncertain origin." So there you are. Happy to be of no assistance whatsoever!
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  Wiktionary says: Pprobably from Old English buttuc (“end; end piece”; also, “short piece of land”). I wonder how "to expel" ends up being "a short piece of land"...
  - mikro2nd 5y ago
    Been wondering lately how the word "fast" means "moving quickly" and also "not moving at all" (as in "hold fast" and also the root of "fasten"). (Also: "refrain from eating".)
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      Per the venerable etymonline.com: > The meaning "quickly, swiftly, rapidly" was perhaps in Old English, certainly by c. 1200, probably from or developed under influence of Old Norse fast "firmly, fast." This sense developed, apparently in Scandinavian, from that of "firmly, strongly, vigorously" (to run hard means the same as to run fast; also compare fast asleep, also compare Old Norse drekka fast "to drink hard," telja fast "to give (someone) a severe lesson"). Or perhaps from the notion of a runner who "sticks" close to whatever he is chasing (compare Old Danish fast "much, swiftly, at once, near to, almost," and sense evolution of German fix "fast, fixed; fast, quick, nimble," from Latin fixus). The expression fast by "near, close, beside" also is said to be from Scandinavian. To fast talk someone (v.) is recorded by 1946. > "act of fasting," late Old English fæsten "voluntary abstinence from food and drink or from certain kinds of food," especially, but not necessarily, as a religious duty; either from the verb in Old English or from Old Norse fasta "a fast, fasting, season for fasting," from a Proto-Germanic noun formed from the verbal root of fast (v.). In earlier Old English fæsten meant "fortress, cloister, enclosure, prison."

by pmlnr 5y ago

Accacin 5y ago

Yeah, in a town near the one I grew up in, there's a street called 'Butt Hole Lane'. That made me laugh a lot when I was younger, even when my parents explained to me what the 'Butt' in this context meant.

peteretep 5y ago
Could have been worse... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane

toyg 5y ago

Even without going archaic, I had to take insurance when I bought a terrace, because a lease existed on the land at some point but the owning company had dissolved years prior and no lease had been paid for a long time. This is very common in a country (UK) where the State has had strong continuity for several centuries, so land rights and entitlements can be tracked very far back.

mytailorisrich 5y ago
These things really are to extract money and commissions during the property purchase. In most cases there is no issue at all but no-one is going to question paying a few pounds extra on a property purchase "for peace of mind".
- ajdlinux 5y ago
  When the likelihood of the risk is small, but the potential damage bill could be financially catastrophic, I think it's perfectly rational to buy insurance if the premium is so low.
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    Sure. My point is that often the risk is not small, it's non-existent. When I bought my current house my solicitor suggested that the seller should pay for insurance cover for the fact that there was no planning paperwork for a small side extension. Of course I said OK and of course the seller also agreed. But that extension was even shown on the land registry plan and was obviously 20+ years old. Since planning breach action is limited to 4 years there was no chance of any problem. Free money for insurer, commissions, etc.
    - gambiting 5y ago
      So I've done the same when I bought my last house(conservatory built 20 years ago, seller couldn't produce the correct paperwork for it), but the issue wasn't the planning permissions per se, it was that the original builder of the house(Belway) hasn't given permission and they reserve the right to do so for 99 years after construction(even though the house is a freehold now, the entire estate is still Belway's leasehold). So the insurance was against that as well. Like, are the chances of Belway complaining and landing us in legal trouble close to zero? Yes, they are, but like said above - it was £50 and I got the seller to pay for it. When we sell the house I'll do the same just to avoid any bumps in the process because of it.
      - mytailorisrich 5y ago
        Hence why I wrote 'often'. There are obviously cases where there is a real, if small, risk. Another thing: You already say that you would be fine paying for the person you will buy the house in the future. However, many indemnity policies run in perpetuity so in principle will still apply and there will be no need to buy a new one.
darkarmani 5y ago
In the US there is adverse possession, so if someone openly claims the land (living, using, maintaining, etc) for many years (10-20?), they can end up owning the land. It helps settle minor arguments between property lines where fences existed for 50 years but the true line was not on the fence line.

michaelt 5y ago

Not if you brought the land since 2013: If the church hasn't registered the chancel repair liability in the land's title register, there's no liability. And very few churches registered, judging it a pretty big middle finger to your congregation. Of course, there are plenty of scammers happy to charge you £50 for insurance against an impossibility...

londons_explore 5y ago
> Of course, there are plenty of scammers happy to charge you £50 for insurance against an impossibility... Charging money for insurance against an event that is impossible is, i believe, a criminal offence in the UK.

sneak 5y ago

> Leftover laws are weird things. Fun fact: just like this old tax that the Italian residents are unhappy with, every single person that was old enough to vote for their representatives who then voted to ratify the income tax amendment in the USA is now dead. There is no one alive in the USA that was in any way represented in the vote for income tax; conversely everyone that is alive in the US today and is subject to it did not have any input into it: they were simply born into it, unrepresented, just as these Italians were. There is a strong argument for all laws having an expiration date a few years past the expected lifespan of the youngest constituent of the represented population that passed it, otherwise we end up ruled primarily by those long dead, entirely unknown to us, as the laws pile up, amended in perpetuity but never aging out.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
CogitoCogito 5y ago
Today's voters are capable of electing representatives who could repeal that amendment. It's not like voters are left without recourse.
- sneak 5y ago
  It appears that elected officials have an extremely strong bias to adding/amending versus repealing/scaling back. I'm not sure the current approach is long-term viable.
  - yunohn 5y ago
    > elected officials have an extremely strong bias to adding/amending versus repealing/scaling back I find this to be a crippling problem of how politics works in modern democracies. Taxes are a great example, because almost every country will increase it, but never decrease it. They’ll think of a 100 new ways to extract taxes, but never remove outdated ones.
    - 5y ago

aclelland 5y ago

Yeah there are a lot of very obscure legal rules that most people aren't aware of or haven't been enforced in many years. Not from as far back but my house was built in the early 1980's and my house deeds include the stipulation that I must maintain a garage attached to the property (so I can't convert it to extra living space) because the local government retain the right to convert the space into a decontamination shelter in the event of chemical, biological or nuclear attack. Had a good chuckle with my lawyer regarding it, don't think I'll be too concerned about where to keep my lawn mower if the city has been nuked.

folli 5y ago
In Switzerland, the rule that every house must be constructed with an appropriate fallout shelter has only been relaxed 10 years ago. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-bunker-idUSTRE7B01RP20111201 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-bunker-idUSTRE7B01R...
- zabzonk 5y ago
  Years ago, I was doing some C++ training for Texas Instruments in Bedford, England. I remarked to the woman running the course how brutalistically ugly their building was. She said it was to prevent damage from earthquakes. Bedford is not exactly famous for these events, and she explained that TI simply had one (possibly quake proof) building designed, and then built the same one all over the world. She may have been pulling my leg, of course.
  - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
    Interesting. I live near the TI HQ in Dallas, so I thought I'd take a peek. The Bedford location apparently still exists as "Bedford Heights," and it does look like a mini TI. The Bedford Heights website does call out the "cyclone-proof roof," which they imported directly from the Dallas HQ blueprints.
    - zabzonk 5y ago

throwaway894345 5y ago

> The word Butt is derived from the Anglo French word 'bouter' meaning to expel. Wow. I suppose that’s the same etymology for “butt” in the anatomological sense?

bloak 5y ago
In the Oxford English Dictionary there are 19 separate entries for "butt" with various disparate senses, including a bundle of cloth, a headland, and a funnel-shaped wicker basket. Some of those entries have complex, multiple etymologies, but the word "buttock" is said to be derived from "butt, n.6" for which the etymology is given as: "Of uncertain origin." So there you are. Happy to be of no assistance whatsoever!
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
Wiktionary says: Pprobably from Old English buttuc (“end; end piece”; also, “short piece of land”). I wonder how "to expel" ends up being "a short piece of land"...
- mikro2nd 5y ago
  Been wondering lately how the word "fast" means "moving quickly" and also "not moving at all" (as in "hold fast" and also the root of "fasten"). (Also: "refrain from eating".)
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    Per the venerable etymonline.com: > The meaning "quickly, swiftly, rapidly" was perhaps in Old English, certainly by c. 1200, probably from or developed under influence of Old Norse fast "firmly, fast." This sense developed, apparently in Scandinavian, from that of "firmly, strongly, vigorously" (to run hard means the same as to run fast; also compare fast asleep, also compare Old Norse drekka fast "to drink hard," telja fast "to give (someone) a severe lesson"). Or perhaps from the notion of a runner who "sticks" close to whatever he is chasing (compare Old Danish fast "much, swiftly, at once, near to, almost," and sense evolution of German fix "fast, fixed; fast, quick, nimble," from Latin fixus). The expression fast by "near, close, beside" also is said to be from Scandinavian. To fast talk someone (v.) is recorded by 1946. > "act of fasting," late Old English fæsten "voluntary abstinence from food and drink or from certain kinds of food," especially, but not necessarily, as a religious duty; either from the verb in Old English or from Old Norse fasta "a fast, fasting, season for fasting," from a Proto-Germanic noun formed from the verbal root of fast (v.). In earlier Old English fæsten meant "fortress, cloister, enclosure, prison."