Trust Property held in connection with the London Spiritual Mission: Charity Commission decision
Published 8 November 2013
Applies to England and Wales
© Crown copyright 2013
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/trust-property-held-in-connection-with-the-london-spiritual-mission/trust-property-held-in-connection-with-the-london-spiritual-mission-charity-commission-decision
The Commission registered the Trust Property Held in Connection with the London Spiritual Mission (1152206) in May 2013. In August 2013 the Commission received a request to review that decision.
The Commission decided that the objections to the registration of the charity ‘Trust property held in connection with The London Spiritual Mission’ are not of a nature such as to affect the decision to register. The objections are concerned with (1) whether the trustees of the charity have been properly appointed and (2) the additional responsibilities of complying with the requirements of charity law.
There is no discretion for charity trustees to decide whether or not to register an institution as a charity. Section 30 of the Charities Act 2011 provides that “every charity must be registered”, subject to exceptions which are not relevant to this case. The Commission registered the ‘Trust property held in connection with The London Spiritual Mission’ on the basis that it was satisfied that the trusts declared in the 1945 Trust Deed are charitable for the advancement of religion for the public benefit. Consequently, as a matter of law, it must be registered as a charity. The objections to registration are not relevant to the issue of whether the 1945 Trust Deed establishes trusts for charitable purposes for the public benefit.
Any concern over whether the trustees have been properly appointed is not one which may be remedied by a review of a decision to register as a charity.