Validity of Charity Objectives: Analysis and Examples

This assignment explores the validity of charity objectives in UK law, considering the requirements for a public benefit purpose as per the Charity Act 2011. It analyzes several scenarios, such as providing training facilities for a local football team, education purposes, land for wildlife prevention, and accommodation for the homeless, to determine their validity as charity objectives. The assignment also references relevant case studies, including Attorney General v Charity Commission for England and Wales & 10 Ors (2012), and McPhail v Doulton [1971] AC 424, to support its analysis.

Law

Table of Contents
SECTION A.....................................................................................................................................1
1 A) Advising Brian regarding failing the will to David absolutely............................................1
1 B) Advising Alison about validity of trust constituted.............................................................2
1 C) Advising Mavis about validity of the trust..........................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

SECTION A
1 A) Advising Brian regarding failing the will to David absolutely
Issue
Brian has made a will through which he has divided his property Alan and Terry, trustee
of the him. Brian made them to give awards to some specific person. Further, if any gift fails in
the will, it would be transferred to David. Brian now seeks advise relating to the creation of will.
Rules:
As per per the Will Act 1837, a will is needed to be made in a written format. The
document of will is needed to be signed by the testator. Testator is a person whose property is to
be distributed in the will (Sokol, 2015). Testator have right to transfer the property to more than
one beneficiaries. Will of the person may fail due to so many reasons. If the property is no longer
in the ownership of testator, further if the beneficiary of will predeceases the owner, the gift
provided under the gift will laps automatically. Moreover, the certainty of the amount or type of
gift is the most important element of gift.
Laws:
In McPhail Vs Doulton [1971] AC 424 case, Bertran Badenn created a non charitable
trust. The main objective of the deed shows that fund would be tranfered to the officers and
employees or ex officers and employees of Mathhew Hall & co. Ltd. As per the discretion of
trustee (McPhail v Doulton [1971] AC 424, 2019). On the death of Baden, the validity of the
trust deed was challenged. On this case, the court held that trust deed does not contain certainty
of amount top be transferred to the beneficiaries. Further, as the trust deed contains a clause the
fund would be transferred as per the discretion of trustee. In this regard, the the property can not
be divided equally among the beneficiaries.
Application
The above rules and the pre decided case, can be applicable over the present case
scenario. By applying these rules and laws, it can be interpret that all those objectives that does
not contain any certain terms, can be failed.
Conclusion
In this regard, failure of the objectives of will that would be transferred to David can be
analysed as inder:
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1.1 £2000 to be transferred to Clive to obtain the singing lesson is a certain objective.
Therefore, it will not transferred to David.
1.2 £2000 to be given to the most creative drummer in London contains some sort of
uncertainty as, analysis of the most creative drummer can be differ person to person.
In this regard, this objective would be covered under uncertain objective. Further, due
to failure of the objective, it would be transferred to David.
1.3 £50,000 to the employees and their family members employed by him does not
contain any uncertainty. Therefore, it would not be fail.
1.4 £30,000 to be transferred for the taking care of sports filed attached to the premises
of music co. is also certain objective. Hence, it will also not fail.
1.5 £50,000 to be transferred to fox of hunting in the East berkshire is not a certain
objective. As, the person to whom the fund is to be transferred is not certain.
Therefore, it would be transferred to the David.
1 B) Advising Alison about validity of trust constituted
Trust can be defined as a legal arrangement in which each asset held by a person is
transferred to some other person so that it could be used for some specific purpose. As per the
Law of property Act 1925, a trust need not to fulfill any specific conditions or formalities.
Rather, it can be created either in written or in oral format. Further, the existence of trustee is
also a major requirements for formation of trustee (Setting up a trust, 2019). Signature on the
trust deed by the trustee is also required at the time of transferring the assets to trust.
Although, Law of property (Miscellaneous Provisions)Act 1989, if the trustee wants to
transfer the real estates like land, a written documentation is needed while disposing of the land
to trust along with the signature of trustee. The law also states that the purpose and objective of
the trust should also be certain and clear while forming the trust deed.
In the given case scenario, Alison wants to transfer her whole asset to the trust. Although,
she didn't sign any written document in containing the details of the transfer of property to trust
(Blond, Antonacopoulou and Pabst, 2015)). Further, the purpose of transferring the asset is also
not certain, as Alison said that the asset should be used for good cause and there can be
numerous good cause. Therefore, the Alison's trust is not a valid.
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1 C) Advising Mavis about validity of the trust
As per the Charities Act 2011, for the purpose of creating a charity, each fund, asset,
resources, etc. must be used for the charitable or public welfare purpose only. The act provides
certain requirements that are needed to be fulfilled for terming any purpose of charity as
charitable purpose (Analysis of the law relating to public benefit, 2019). Charity provided for the
purpose of education, poverty relief, sports, etc. can be treated as a valid. Further, the act also
states that the purpose of the charitable trust must not have contrary effect with any of the law of
the country. A trust created for the religious purpose may fail to satisfy the validity test of the
Charity objectives (Rackley and Auchmuty, 2018). Further, as per this act, charity made for
maintenance schools, library can not be treated as a valid objective of charity. In addition, the
objective of the charity is needed to be tangible. In case, the charity is framed for any intangible
purpose, it is needed to get approval from the enlightened opinions. After getting such approval,
the objective would be able to be termed as a valid objective.
As per the Attorney-General v Charity Commission case, the objective behind formation
of a charity should be beneficiary for the community (Attorney General v Charity Commission
for England and Wales & 10 Ors (2012), 2019)(. It is needed to be in the spirit and intrinsic to
the benefit of general public.
In this regard, the validity of charity's objectives can be analysed as under:
1.1 To provide ground and training facility for the local football team can be treated
as a valid objective as it can be treated as a public welfare.
1.2 The objective of providing training course for the seeking to become faith healers
can not be treated as a valid charity purpose. Education purpose can not be treated as
a valid purpose of charity.
1.3 Land for prevention of wildlife is a social welfare purpose further it also includes
a tangible asset (Mendis, 2019). Therefore, it is a valid objective of charity.
1.4 Fund for acquisition of artwork is neither public nor social care purpose.
Therefore, it can not be a valid objective of charity as as per the charity act, 2011.
1.5 Accommodation provided for the homeless and destitute can be covered under a
public welfare purpose and held can be covered under the valid objective of the
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Sokol, D. K., 2015. Update on the UK law on consent. Bmj. 350. p.h1481.
Blond, P., Antonacopoulou, E. and Pabst, A., 2015. In Professions We Trust: Fostering virtuous
practitioners in teaching, law and medicine.
Rackley, E. and Auchmuty, R. eds., 2018. Women's Legal Landmarks: Celebrating the history of
women and law in the UK and Ireland. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Mendis, D., 2019. Winds of change: conceptualising copyright law in a world of 3D models and
3D design files–a perspective from the UK. In Online Distribution of Content in the EU.
Edward Elgar Publishing.
Online
Setting up a trust. 2019. [Online] Available through :
<https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/setting-up-a-trust>
Analysis of the law relating to public benefit. 2019. [Online] Available through
:<https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/
attachment_data/file/589796/Public_benefit_analysis_of_the_law.pdf>
Attorney General v Charity Commission for England and Wales & 10 Ors (2012). 2019. [Online]
Available through:
<https://www.maitlandchambers.com/information/recent-cases/attorney-general-v-
charity-commission-for-england-and-wales-10-ors-2012>
McPhail v Doulton [1971] AC 424. 2019. [Online] Available through:
<https://lawcasesummaries.com/knowledge-base/mcphail-v-doulton-1971-ac-424/>
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