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Simon Nightingale Partner |
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Our department acts for a complete range of charities, from those with national coverage to locally based community charities, covering a wide range of activities including medical research, museums, the care of children, sport, village halls and alms houses.
A charity may be incorporated as a charitable company, or be unincorporated under the terms of a declaration of trust.
We provide a full range of services for charities from incorporating and setting up to registration with the Charity Commission, through to routine management and dealing with governance and other problems as they arise.
In general most charities have many of the needs of a business and these may relate to property, employment, contractual disputes and possible trading activity. In addition there are the overriding obligations imposed on all charity trustees or directors of charitable companies by legislation and the Charity Commission. A charity must ensure that it meets all these requirements in order to maintain its privileged tax status and to ensure that its directors or trustees avoid disciplinary intervention. A charity requires specialist legal advisors who can ensure that the full range of advice is available, often by calling on the expertise of other departments in the firm.
We regularly deal with enquiries raised by the Charity Commission and liaise with the Commission on behalf of charity clients on such issues as governance, merger, reorganisation and transfer of assets.
Particular problems arising recently have included:
Public benefit |
Trustees’ indemnity insurance |
Charitable status |
Charitable trading |
Mergers and take overs |
Disputed legacies |
