Vesting Of Property

• Part 1 of the Charitable Trusts Act concerns the vesting of property. When a property is given, transferred or bequeathed to a charitable trust, or is purchased by the trustees of a charitable trust on behalf of the trust, the administration of that property is granted to the trustees. This means that the trustees have a vested interest in the property, and they have the right to administer that property in the interests of the trust that owns the property. Section 3 of the act states that the trustees of a charitable trust have a vested interest in property acquired by the trust, and any subsequent trustees appointed by the trust will also have the same vested interest in trust property as the trustees existing at the time that the trust acquired the property.
  
  

Incorporation Of Trust Boards

• Part 2 of the Charitable Trusts Act governs the incorporation of charitable trust boards. A charitable trust board is made up of trustees who are responsible for administering the assets of the trust. Section 11 of the act concerns the registration of trust boards, and states that only trusts that have activities that are exclusively or principally charitable can register as a charitable trust. The Registrar responsible for registering charitable trusts must investigate the trust to ensure that it is engaged in charitable activity, and can then enter the board of trustees of the trust in the charitable register. The Registrar may dissolve a trust board if the Registrar discovers that the trust board no longer carries out its charitable activities. Section 26 of the act states that the Registrar must record the fact of the dissolution in the register of charitable trusts and publish the fact of the dissolution within 20 working days of the dissolution.
  
  

Disposal Of Property

• If a charitable trust is no longer able to continue with its stated charitable activities, then the board of trustees must dispose of its property. This may happen, for example, if a trust is established to help victims of a natural disaster. If life returns to normal for the people that the charitable trust exists to help, the trust may not be able to continue with its stated activity. In this case, section 32, in Part 3 of the act states that the if the trust owns any property, or derives income from any source, the board of trustees must dispose of the property to the benefit of another charity, or a number of charities.
  
  

Voluntary Contributions

• Part 4 of the act refers to money raised through voluntary contributions made by individuals and other organizations, such as businesses, to a charitable trust. According to section 39 of the act, this also applies money raised by the sale of items donated to a charity that are then sold on to provide income for the charity. If the charitable trust proposes granting any surpluses of income or residue of money, where the charitable trust can no longer continue with its original stated activities, it can make the income or funds available for other charitable purposes, and must advertise this fact in advance. Section 49 allows contributors to the charity to request the return of their contributions if they do not want their contributions used for any purpose other than the original aims of the charitable trust.