Charities Act 1960

38 Repeal of law of mortmain

(1) The Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act, 1888, the Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act, 1891, and the Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act Amendment Act, 1892, together with any enactments amending those Acts (and in particular section eighty-seven of the Education Act, 1944, and sections fourteen and four hundred and eight of the Companies Act, 1948) shall cease to have effect.

(2) No right or title to any property shall be defeated or impugned, and no assurance or disposition of property shall be treated as void or voidable, by virtue of any of the enactments mentioned in the foregoing subsection, or of any other enactment relating to mortmain, if at the passing of this Act the possession is in accordance with that right or title or with that assurance or disposition, and no step has been taken to assert a claim by virtue of any such enactment :

Provided that this subsection shall not validate any assurance or disposition so as to defeat a right or title acquired by adverse possession before the passing of this Act.

(3) The repeal by this Act of the Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act, 1891, shall have effect in relation to the wills of persons dying before the passing of this Act so as to abrogate any requirement to sell land then unsold, but not so as to enable effect to be given to a direction to lay out personal estate in land without an order under section eight of that Act or so as to affect the power to make such an order.

(4) Any reference in any enactment or document to a charity within the meaning, purview and interpretation of the Charitable Uses Act, 1601, or of the preamble to it, shall be construed as a reference to a charity within the meaning which the word bears as a legal term according to the law of England and Wales.

(5) No repeal made by this Act shall affect any power to hold land in Northern Ireland without licence in mortmain; but (without prejudice to the general provision made later in this Act about the powers of the Parliament of Northern Ireland) if that Parliament repeals any of the Acts relating to mortmain in Northern Ireland, then notwithstanding any enactment limiting the powers of that Parliament the repeal may extend to sections fourteen and four hundred and eight of the Companies Act, 1948, as they affect land in Northern Ireland, and to any corresponding enactments of that Parliament as those enactments affect land in Great Britain, and may also extend to any other enactment of the Parliament of the United Kingdom so far as it relates to holding land in mortmain in Northern Ireland.