Partnerships

Partnerships

This subtopic provides guidance on general partnerships, limited partnerships and limited liability partnerships (LLPs).

General partnerships

The Partnership Act 1890 (PA 1890) sets out the legal framework that applies to general partnerships.

A partnership under PA 1890 is described as the relationship that subsists between persons (which includes individuals or corporate entities) carrying on a business (which includes every trade, occupation and profession) in common with a view of profit.

Nature of a general partnership and its legal framework

PA 1890 does not provide a complete code of partnership law and expressly preserves the rules of equity and common law applicable to partnerships, except where they are inconsistent with the express provisions of PA 1890.

As a partnership is not a separate legal entity from its partners, it cannot acquire rights, incur obligations or hold property in its own right. It is therefore important to distinguish between partnership property and property that personally belongs to an individual partner.

Each partner is an agent of the partnership and their other partners for the purposes of the partnership's business and can bind the partnership, and

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