As a former ECUSA member (now Catholic), I'm not so sure that it's all smooth sailing for the TEC. The bulk of the "wealth" of the church is in property and buildings. Those need a substantial and regular income stream to maintain, especially the older Anglican Gothic buildings with their slate roofs, creaky furnaces, leaky windows, etc. (I'm pretty familiar with the cost - because a good friend of ours was Senior Warden of our old ECUSA parish and my hubby was Head Usher and helped count the money! And ours was a fairly new building, it still cost hundreds of thousands of dollars YEARLY for utilities, routine maintenance, and repairs!)If TEC fights for real property, first it's going to have to spend a buncha bucks on legal fees. Whether it winds depends on state law, and even in states that defer to "hierarchical" churches, the disapproval from Canterbury is going to throw a monkey wrench into the whole issue of exactly WHO is the hierarchy - 815, or Canterbury?
ASSUMING TEC wins, it's going to find itself in possession of a lot of creaky old buildings that will cost a fortune to maintain. And with the denomination bleeding membership, that money is going to have to come from dipping into principal and trust funds. And that can only go on for a short period of time. They'll be able to sell some properties that have commercial value -- for example, our former bishop is salivating over the property of the only remaining "High Church" parish -- it's the last major piece of commercially zoned property in a very hot area. But most church properties are not that saleable, and TEC is going to have to balance selling the really visible properties against the public relations hit they would take.
So it's not going to be exactly EASY . . .
BTW, make sure to click the link in my #12 above..