Church of England court fees change from January 2027

According to the statutory instrument published on legislation.gov.uk, the Ecclesiastical Judges, Legal Officers and Others (Fees) Order 2026 was made on 11 July 2026, laid before Parliament on 31 July 2026 and will come into force on 1 January 2027. It was approved by the General Synod and it replaces the 2025 fees order. If you have never heard of this part of church law, you are not alone. This is not about changing doctrine or worship. It is, much more plainly, a fees order for the Church of England's legal machinery in England. It sets out what can be charged in church building cases, appeals, cathedral reviews, clergy discipline matters and some election disputes.

The most recognisable part for many parishes will be the rule on faculty petitions. You can think of a faculty as the Church of England's own formal permission process for changes to a church building, its grounds, or fixed items in and around it. If a parish wants to alter a wall memorial, move pews, add lighting, repair a fixed structure or change part of the church site, the case may fall within this jurisdiction. From 1 January 2027, article 3 sets a fee of £247, payable to the diocesan board of finance when the petition is submitted. That fee covers work done by the diocesan advisory committee or an archdeacon before or after the petition goes in. The board can waive all or part of the charge if those responsible for the building, or someone closely connected to it, has already made a financial contribution to diocesan funds. No fee is payable here for a building covered by a sharing agreement or for the chapel at Lambeth Palace.

There is also an important detail that is easy to miss. Where the Order names a fee payable to a chancellor or registrar, article 2 says that person may decide on a fee up to the amount listed. So the figure in the Order is not always an automatic flat charge in every case; it is often the ceiling. The same practical tone appears in article 4, which covers work by a diocesan registrar on the register of patrons. That includes searches, extracts and certified copies linked to patronage rights over benefices. Instead of giving one new set figure, the Order ties that fee to the Solicitors' (Non-Contentious Business) Remuneration Order 2009 unless the work is already covered by an annual fee. The Order also keeps one classic Church of England distinction in view: in Canterbury, references to the consistory court are read as references to the commissary court, and the chancellor becomes the Commissary General.

Once a case moves into the consistory court, which is the diocesan church court handling many faculty disputes, the charging structure becomes more layered. Article 5 says different fees are payable for different steps in proceedings, with some due to the chancellor and some to the registrar. In certain matters, the fee depends on the number of hours spent, and the person charging must certify that time. That matters because the cost of church law is not always one single payment at the start. A straightforward matter may stay fairly contained. A contested case, or one that needs extra directions, hearings or written decisions, can build up more expense as more legal work is done. The Order even says that if no fee is specified for a consistory court matter, the registrar can charge the amount prescribed for the equivalent matter in the High Court.

Appeals have their own structure. Article 6 covers proceedings on an appeal from a consistory court and also cases where a provincial court gives directions about proceedings still underway in a consistory court. In the Arches Court of Canterbury and the Chancery Court of York, some fees are payable to each member of the court involved in giving directions, hearing the appeal or preparing a separate written judgment. The wider lesson is useful if you are trying to understand ecclesiastical law. The Church of England does not run one single court with one single fee scale. It has different courts for different kinds of dispute. The Order therefore reads less like one price list and more like a map of how church justice is spread across diocesan courts, provincial courts and specialist bodies.

That becomes even clearer in the sections on cathedrals and specialist doctrinal cases. Articles 7 and 8 deal with reviews under the Care of Cathedrals Measure 2011 and proceedings before the Vicar-General's court. Articles 9 and 10 deal with the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved and reviews of its findings. These are the parts of church law that handle especially sensitive or specialised questions, including some matters involving doctrine, ritual or ceremonial. For readers outside church administration, the detail can seem distant, but it shows something important. Church buildings and church law are not handled in exactly the same way at parish church level, cathedral level and doctrinal level. The fees order mirrors that split. It also shows that, in some categories, the Archbishops' Council rather than a private individual is the body expected to meet the fees.

Clergy discipline is another major part of the Order. Articles 11 and 12 set fees for proceedings under the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003 and for appeals under that Measure. Here again, the work of judges and registrars is costed, and where the fee depends on time, that time must be certified. In these cases the Order says the fees are payable by the Archbishops' Council under the older statutory machinery it relies on. Article 13 is especially revealing because it shows how detailed the system can get. If the President of Tribunals cannot act and another person is appointed instead, that person is paid a fixed fee of £240 for some decisions and £463 for others. The lower amount covers matters such as permission to bring proceedings out of time, some time-limit questions, substitutions of party and certain review requests. The higher amount covers heavier tasks, including reviewing a dismissal, deciding whether there is a case to answer, hearing some suspension appeals and making certain determinations in sexual misconduct cases involving a vulnerable adult.

The Order reaches beyond buildings and discipline. It also sets the fee for a judge deciding a summary election appeal in Church of England elections to the General Synod, with the hourly rate tied to the same rate used for preparing a judgment on a clergy discipline appeal. Even church elections, then, can move into a formal legal costs framework. Just as importantly, article 16 brings in a safety valve. If someone would qualify in the ordinary civil courts for an exemption, reduction or remission of fees, they are entitled to an equivalent form of help here as well. The application is made to the registrar, who also takes on any discretion that the civil fees rules would normally give to another decision-maker. If relief is granted, the diocesan board of finance must cover the amount that would otherwise have been paid, and it also pays the registrar's reasonable costs of handling the application.

The final provisions matter because they affect the real total, not just the headline figures. Article 17 says that any fee under the Order, apart from the article 3 faculty petition fee, can be increased to cover reasonable travel, subsistence, accommodation and the cost of holding hearings. Article 18 adds that VAT is payable on top where it is chargeable. So the number you first see in the Order may not be the final bill. The explanatory note says the purpose plainly: the 2026 Order revokes and replaces the 2025 version, and the revised fees begin on 1 January 2027. **What it means:** this is a technical change, but not a trivial one. If your parish is planning building works, if a dispute becomes an appeal, or if a clergy discipline case is opened, the Church of England's legal process now comes with an updated price tag and a clearer statement of who may be asked to pay it.