Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Charity definition

What does Charity mean? In practice, a charity is an organisation established solely for charitable purposes to deliver public benefit, with assets held for those purposes and supervised by the courts and charity regulators. Common forms include a trust, unincorporated association or company limited by guarantee (including CIO/SCIO). Surpluses cannot be distributed to members; funds must be applied to the purposes. Political activity is permitted only as ancillary. Status determines regulatory duties and eligibility for charity tax reliefs. England and Wales: Charities Act 2011, s 1, defines a charity as an institution established for charitable purposes only and subject to High Court control;...

Charity trustees’ powers in England and Wales: sources, company/CIO/unincorporated structures, and principal statutory powers on investments, land, remuneration, indemnity insurance, governing document amendments, permanent endowment and delegation

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Practice notes

Charity trustees exercise authority sourced from several places: the express terms of the Charity’s governing document, the Charities Act 2011 (CA 2011) and other legislation, and from common law and statutory principles arising from the charity’s nature as a legal person and as an entity in its own right.

All such powers must be used only to advance the charity’s objects and to preserve its assets; where trustees apply a power for some other end, or act in a way that is not in the charity’s best interests, the decision may, if intentional, be a ‘fraud on a power’, or otherwise a negligent (or inadvertent) Breach of trust for which the trustees could be held personally liable.

Powers and the charity format

The character of the charity itself may determine, in part, the range of powers open to the trustees, and therefore be relevant to what they can properly do...

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Francesca Quint

Radcliffe Chambers

Professional backgroundFrancesca Quint is best known as a specialist in charity law, an area in which she has been working for the whole of her career to date. Her interest in charity law dates from the time when she was reading law as an undergraduate at King's College, London.Professional expertiseCharity law naturally overlaps with distinct areas of law in which Francesca also practises which impinge on the activities of charities. These include education, housing, ecclesiastical law and aspects of public law. It also extends to those areas which affect people who wish to support charities, such as wills, trusts and tax, in which Francesca is often asked to advise regardless of any specific charity involvement.A good deal of Francesca's work is non-contentious but she often finds herself advising charities in trouble, whether financial, constitutional or regulatory, or acting for one side or another in...

Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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