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RECREATIONAL CHARITIES ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1958

RECREATIONAL CHARITIES ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1958 - LONG TITLE

An Act to declare charitable the provision in the interests of
social welfare of facilities for recreation or other leisure-time
occupation and for purposes connected therewith.
[25th November 1958]
General provision as to recreational and similar trusts, etc.

RECREATIONAL CHARITIES ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1958 - SECT 1

1.(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, it shall be and be
deemed always to have been charitable to provide, or assist in the
provision of, facilities for recreation or other leisure-time
occupation, if the facilities are provided in the interests of
social welfare:

Provided that nothing in this section shall be taken to derogate
from the principle that a trust or institution to be charitable
must be for the public benefit.

(2) The requirement of sub-section (1) that the facilities are
provided in the interests of social welfare shall not be treated as
satisfied unless

(a)the facilities are provided with the object of improving the
conditions of life for the persons for whom the facilities are
primarily intended; and

(b)either

(i)those persons have need of such facilities as aforesaid by reason
of their youth, age, infirmity or disablement, poverty or social and
economic circumstances; or

(ii)the facilities are to be available to the members or female
members of the public at large.

(3) Subject to the said requirement, sub-section (1) applies in
particular to the provision of facilities at village halls, community
centres and women's institutes, and to the provision and maintenance
of grounds and buildings to be used for purposes of recreation or
leisure-time occupation, and extends to the provision of facilities
for those purposes by the organising of any activity.

RECREATIONAL CHARITIES ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1958 - SECT 2
Savings and other provisions as to past transactions.

2.(1) Nothing in this Act shall be taken to restrict the purposes
which are to be regarded as charitable independently of this Act.

(2) Nothing in this Act

(a)shall apply to make charitable any trust, or validate any
disposition, of property if before the seventeenth day of December,
nineteen hundred and fifty-seven, that property or any property
representing or forming part or it, or any income arising from any
such property, has been paid or conveyed to, or applied for the
benefit of, the persons entitled by reason of the invalidity of the
trust or disposition; or

(b)shall affect any order or judgment made or given (whether before
or after the passing of this Act) in legal proceedings begun before
that day; or

(c)shall require anything properly done before that day, or anything
done or to be done in pursuance of a contract entered into before
that day, to be treated for any purpose as wrongful or ineffectual.

(3) Except as provided by sub-section (4), nothing in this Act
shall require anything to be treated for the purposes of any
enactment as having been charitable at a time before the date of
the passing of this Act, so as to invalidate anything done or any
determination given before that date.

(4) As respects stamp duty on any instrument executed before the
date of the passing of this Act, this Act shall not require
anything to be treated as having been charitable for the purposes
of section eight of the Finance Act (Northern Ireland), 1952 (which
excepted instruments in favour of charities and others from certain
increases of stamp duty under the Finance Act (Northern Ireland),
1947), unless it would have been so treated in accordance with the
practice applied by the Ministry of Finance, for the purposes of
the said section eight, immediately before the eighteenth day of
December, nineteen hundred and fifty-two; but subject to that and to
paragraphs (a) and (b) of sub-section (2), where more stamp duty
has been paid on an instrument executed on or after the said
eighteenth day of December and before the date of the passing of
this Act than ought to have been paid having regard to section
one, the provisions of sections ten and eleven of the Stamp Duties
Management Act, 1891, shall apply as if a stamp of greater value
than was necessary had been inadvertently used for the instrument,
and relief may be given accordingly, and may be so given
notwithstanding that, in accordance with the provisions of section
twelve of the Stamp Act, 1891, the instrument had been stamped
before the passing of this Act with a particular stamp denoting
that it was duly stamped.

An application for relief under the said section ten as applied by
this sub-section may be made at any time within two years from the
date of the passing of this Act, notwithstanding that it is made
outside the time limited by that section.

RECREATIONAL CHARITIES ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1958 - SECT 3
Application to Crown.

3. This Act shall bind the Crown to the full extent authorised or
permitted by the constitutional laws of Northern Ireland.

RECREATIONAL CHARITIES ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1958 - SECT 4
Short title.

4. This Act may be cited as the Recreational Charities Act
(Northern Ireland), 1958.