Legal advice regarding religious charity constitution

[Chamon_Lee]

I would greatly appreciate anyone’s advice but in particular anyone in the legal profession.

I try my best to keep this short and concise as possible. I have been working with a small religious charity and there has been an on going battle between the trustees regarding how it should be run. In a nut shell most of them do nothing and usually look for some sort of personal gain and the 2 remaining trustees are running the place as best as they can.

When the organization was first created as an unincorporated organization of around 10 trustrees a constitution was put in place with the usual objectives, how to vote people in and remove people, membership rules, elections etc. It wasn’t perfect but I felt it had the essence of what a constitution should be and fulfill its purpose of protecting the charity and providing us a framework of guidance of how to deal with most issues.

Due to a community struggle this constitution was replaced with another document called a trust document at the time of the struggle. This document has very little, in way of the right purpose, how people would be voted in or out and very much reads as the trustees are protect at all costs with no real framework for the charity.
This trust document was put in place as a significantly large part of the community wanted most of the trustees removed for not fulfilling the requirements of the community and not doing things in a fair way.

From what I have been shown this “trust” document was submitted to a solicitor and the charities commission however we have no other proof of all trustees having signed this with meeting minutes etc
More importantly from what I have seen for an organization to actually change to a trust it need to have a change in legal stance and transfer of assets etc which as far as I can see was never done.

My question is does the original constitution still stand or would “trust” document have some validity. Even if it did have some validity I can see the charities commission website has a lot of guidance of what to do if trustees are not doing their job or have conflicts of interest etc but it is rather overwhelming.

I would greatly appreciate some advice and if there are some legal eagles that would provide further help I would be happy to take on their services.

[akirk]

have a chat with the charity commission, they are very helpful and will be a first point of contact / involved anyway if there is a dispute…

they will tend to have a pragmatic approach which protects:
- reputation of charities generally
- money being used for its charitable process
- no abuse of finances / power / people

they are less interested in semantics as long as the law is not obviously being breached and the charity is still delivering to its charitable remit…

they have even less interest in power plays between people…

they should be able to confirm the document under which the charity is now established

[Chrisgr31]

The trustees should at all time be working in the interests of charity. Charity Trustees should never be working for their own interests. In the vast majority of cases they shouldn’t be paid.

The purposes of the charity can be changed with Charity Commission consent, however the Charity Commission are of course under staffed.

Seems unlikely the constitution should be replaced with a trust document but it all depends what they say

[Countdown]

Does the Charity have an AGM?

I'm guessing that the Trustees aren't elected/re-elected annually otherwise it would be a straightforward process to remove them

[Chamon_Lee]

Countdown said:

Does the Charity have an AGM?

I'm guessing that the Trustees aren't elected/re-elected annually otherwise it would be a straightforward process to remove them

I mean it should have. The original constitution that was set up did state elections should be set up, the president should be doing these every 3 years and it was never done. What happened was within 2 years of the charity being set up, a "trust" document was created and submitted however the assets remain in the individual names and the charity is still a society and not listed as a trust.

In essence the "trust document" was created by the same people that we wanted removed then and we want removed now.

[Countdown]

Chamon_Lee said:

Countdown said:

Does the Charity have an AGM?

I'm guessing that the Trustees aren't elected/re-elected annually otherwise it would be a straightforward process to remove them

I mean it should have. The original constitution that was set up did state elections should be set up, the president should be doing these every 3 years and it was never done. What happened was within 2 years of the charity being set up, a "trust" document was created and submitted however the assets remain in the individual names and the charity is still a society and not listed as a trust.

In essence the "trust document" was created by the same people that we wanted removed then and we want removed now.

Sorry if I'm missing something.

Do you not have an AGM? Do you file a TAR (Trustees Annual Report) with the Charities Commission? if you do then how / when do the members approve this document?

[Chrisgr31]

Charity assets are often owned in the name of individuals as trustees for the charity. This is because if the charity is not an incorporated organisation it cant own assets in its own name.

[Cyberprog]

Chrisgr31 said:

Charity assets are often owned in the name of individuals as trustees for the charity. This is because if the charity is not an incorporated organisation it cant own assets in its own name.

Yup, our PC spent many years holding the village hall land title due to this, the VH was then re-created as a CIO to allow it to hold this!