A Warwickshire couple is facing financial ruin after a 12-year legal dispute with the Church of England over repairs to an ancient parish church ended.
Lewison J has ordered Gail and Andrew Wallbank to pay almost £200,000 to meet the cost of repairs to the
In 1995, the church council for Aston Cantlow demanded that the Wallbanks finance repair works on the basis that part of their property, Glebe Farm, was classified as “rectorial property” thus making them “lay rectors” liable for repairing the church.
In March 2000, the High Court ruled that the Wallbanks were liable for the repairs but, in May 2001, that decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal on the ground that the imposition of liability breached human rights legislation
That decision was reversed, in June 2003, by the House of Lords, which ruled that the Human Rights Act 1998 could not apply because the church council was not a public authority.
At the hearing to assess the repair costs, the Wallbanks complained that the church should follow their own teachings and “temper the wind to the shorn lamb”.
They submitted that although liability had now been accepted, the church was demanding a “Rolls-Royce job when more limited repairs were adequate”.
Rejecting those arguments, Lewison J said that “the court must take the law as it finds it”.
Mark Hill (instructed by Rotherham & Co, of
