Good news for legacies in Scottish charity bill

20 December 2022

There’s welcome news for legacies in the new Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Bill, which landed in parliament last month.

The Bill introduces a system for recording charity mergers. The hope is that this will minimise the chances of legacies being lost when one charity is amalgamated into another, they merge or transfer assets into a SCIO (Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation).

Minimising lost legacies

Working in a similar way to the legal framework in England and Wales, the intention here is to ensure that charities named in a Will can still benefit from legacies intended for them even when one organisation has merged into another.

The Bill indicates that OSCR will house a record of charity mergers. The onus then lies with charities to ensure the regulator is updated of any relevant change or developments, enabling gifts in Wills to be transferred through to them as the intended beneficiary.

You can explore the Scottish Bill here.

To read more about what this change means for Scottish charities, take a look at this blog from Alan Eccles at Bannatyne Kirkwood France & Co.