Q&As

A charity wishes to assign the leasehold title to a property but, out of the five charity trustees named as registered proprietors of the property, three have died and one has retired. New trustees are running the charity but no record can be found of their formal appointment. What needs to be done in order to transfer the legal estate of the property? If the new trustees need to be made parties to the transfer and evidence of their appointment cannot be found, how should this be dealt with? (There is a restriction on title re: dispositions under section 37(2) of the Charities Act 1993).

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Produced in partnership with Lynne Counsell of Addington Chambers
Published on: 06 December 2017
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The Charities Act 1993 was repealed some while ago. Irrespective of this charities must now comply with the provisions relating to the transfer of land found in sections 117–129 of the Charities Act 2011 (CA 2011). In general, Charity land may not be disposed of without an order of the court or the Charity Commission (CA 2011, s 117(1)). This is pertinent to the issue you raise as those Requirements do not apply

Lynne Counsell
Lynne Counsell

Barrister, Addington Chambers

Lynne has been in traditional Chancery practice for some thirty years, specialising in probate matters, construction of wills and trusts and also financial services and drafting.

Lynne was for some years counsel for Tower Hamlets, representing them on landlord and tenant cases and counsel for Bedford Building Society representing it on mortgage cases.

Lynne has written or updated over fifty books, including writing the initial volume of Atkin’s Court Forms “Financial Services” and updating Halsbury’s Laws on Injunctions. Lynne was also co-author of two editions of “Insider Trading” and co-editor and one of the writers of “Chancery Practice and Procedure.”

Articles include “Marketing of Investments” for the Law Society Gazette and “The Doctrine of Mutual Wills” for the Trust Quarterly Review. Lynne won one of the few cases on mutual wills in the last fifty years – Charles v Fraser (2010).

Lynne has drafted the standard unit trust for the government of Nigeria, the rules and related documentation for various building societies and clubs, shareholder agreements, company takeovers compliance documentation for certain banks as well as wills and trusts.

Lynne was awarded the 2017 Corporate international Magazine Global Award – “Investment Contracts Barrister of the Year in England”.

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Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom
Related legal acts:
Key definition:
Charity definition
What does Charity mean?

A charity is an institution which is established for charitable purposes only and falls to be subject to the control of the High Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction with respect to charities (Charities Act 2011, s 1)

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