Eligible buildings

To be eligible for the scheme, your place of worship must be listed with the relevant statutory listing agency. For places of worship in England, Scotland, and Wales, you can check your listing by searching at British Listed Buildings. Places of worship in Northern Ireland can check their listing by searching at Northern Ireland Buildings Database.

Listings carried out by local councils are not acceptable within the scheme. Claims will only be considered for repairs to buildings that are listed at the time the work is carried out.

If your claim is returned because we cannot identify your listing, it does not necessarily mean that the place of worship is not listed – it may mean that the details recorded at the time of listing differ slightly to those on the application. You should return your application together with paperwork to show your listing with the relevant statutory listing agency.

Part of our approval process is to check against the statutory records that your building is formally listed, however if you do not know the listing grade or category you can leave that field blank in your application.

The scheme is designed to assist works to places of worship where the costs would be the responsibility of a local congregation or a recognised denomination or faith group. The scheme covers only formally constituted religious organisations. You’ll be asked to certify that the religious organisation the place of worship serves:

•  has charitable status or is recognised as a charity by HMRC
•  is covered by a parochial church council or equivalent

If neither of these apply, you’ll be asked to provide a copy of your constitution.

The building’s sole or main use must be as a public place of worship and it must be used as a place of public worship at least 6 times a year. You’ll be asked to certify this.

Certain places of worship are not required to demonstrate that buildings are used for public religious worship at least 6  times a year. These include:

• Places of worship used as monasteries, nunneries or other similar religious establishments
• Churches owned or vested in organisations that look after redundant places of worship may not need to demonstrate their use for public religious worship at least 6 times a year. These organisations include the Historic Chapels Trust, the Friends of Friendless Churches, the Scottish Redundant Churches Trust, the Churches Conservation Trust, the Welsh Religious Buildings Trust, the Foundation for Jewish Heritage, and the Norwich Historic Churches Trust. These groups do need to demonstrate that their principal or primary purpose is to conserve, repair and maintain redundant listed places of worship which are not in private ownership.

Applications should include the registered charity number where applicable, along with any other supporting evidence to show how the criteria are met.

For monasteries and nunneries, and similar establishments of other faiths, only the element of the building used for religious worship is eligible.

Ancillary listed buildings/stand-alone or separate structures are not included unless their sole or main use is as a place of public religious worship or they are permanently linked to and form part of the structure of the listed building.

We don’t need evidence that planning consent has been granted for repairs, however you do need to tell us if consent is needed and that the work has been approved. Also, you may need to provide written evidence of approval or to demonstrate why consent was not required, if your claim is audited.