Legacies

Legacies

It is a fact of life for many charities that their principal source of income is from legacies. These generally take the form of specific gifts in a Will but there can be occasions where charities are faced with objections to the Will.

Charitable gifts and ex-gratia payments

Although probably rare there will be circumstances where charitable trustees may find themselves with a moral obligation to transfer all or part of a charitable gift to a person who is neither a beneficiary under the Will nor a potential beneficiary of charitable funds. In theory such an ex-gratia payment should not be made as the trustees are under a duty to maximise the assets of the charity.

However, there is legislative authority to enable trustees to do this subject to certain safeguards.

It is not clear when such payments can be made and what the criteria are for the authorisation of the payment. Plainly there are obvious occasions such as where someone has devotedly cared for the testator for many years as is not recognised in the Will but each circumstance will depend on its merits.

Any application for

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