Presbyterian Trusts Act 1890

An Act to provide for the creation of a Corporate Body of Trustees in which Property belonging to "The Presbyterian Church of Victoria" may be vested and for other purposes.

WHEREAS by an Act passed in the twenty-second year of Her present Majesty numbered LXXXII as amended by Act No. CCCXXI, it was enacted that all hereditaments estates and temporal privileges and all equitable rights belonging to certain Presbyterian bodies and the congregations thereof should belong to "The Presbyterian Church of Victoria" and the several congregations thereof subject to the decisions and judicatories of the said church only:

AND WHEREAS the General Assembly of the said church has adopted Model Trust Deeds (hereinafter called "The Model Trust Deeds of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria") to the intent that certain property belonging to the said church may be held upon the trusts thereof:

AND WHEREAS the said Model Deeds were deposited with the Registrar-General on the eleventh day of March One thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine and are numbered respectively four thousand three hundred and seventy-nine and four thousand three hundred and eighty:

AND WHEREAS the members of the said church are desirous that a corporate body of trustees should be created for the purpose of holding the property of the said church, and that for the better management thereof certain property of the said church should be vested in such corporate body, and that the trusts upon which the property of the said church is held should be assimilated so far as possible to the trusts contained in the said Model Deeds, and that the conveyance and transfer of such property should be facilitated and rendered less expensive:

s. 1

This Act shall be called and may for all purposes be cited as the Presbyterian Trusts Act 1890.

In this Act, unless inconsistent with the subject-matter or context, the following words shall have the meanings hereinafter respectively assigned to them:

S. 2 def. of "Church" substituted by No. 9344 s. 3(1).

"Church" means the Presbyterian Church of Victoria continuing to function under the name or style of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria in accordance with clause 18 of Part III of the Schedule to the Presbyterian Church of Australia Act 1971;

S. 2 def. of "Common Fund" inserted by No. 7310 s. 2(a).

"Common Fund" means the Common Fund authorized to be established and kept in the books of the Trusts Corporation pursuant to sub-section (1) of section fourteen A;

"General Assembly" shall mean the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, convened in accordance with the rules practice and usages of the said church;

"General Assembly's Trustees" shall mean the persons who previously to the creation of the corporate body of trustees hereinafter mentioned have been appointed by the General Assembly as trustees for the property of the church;

"Moderator" shall mean the Moderator for the time being of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria;

"property" shall mean land promised or reserved by the Crown for any of the purposes of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria or of any of the bodies mentioned in the said Act No. LXXXII, as amended by the Act No. CCCXXI, and all property real and personal including money or securities for money held by or vested or purporting to be vested in or claimable by any person or persons either in trust generally for the said Church or for any congregation thereof or for any special purpose in connexion therewith or for the benefit or use of the members thereof as such or of any person or persons holding for the time being office therein;

S. 2 def. of "Trusts Corporation" inserted by No. 7310 s. 2(b).

"Trusts Corporation" means the corporate body of trustees constituted under this Act under the name of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria Trusts Corporation.

s. 4

As soon as may be after the passing of such resolution the Moderator shall cause a copy thereof duly certified under his hand to be delivered to the Registrar-General, who shall retain and register the same.

Within one month of the registration of such resolution the Registrar-General shall give notice thereof by advertising the same at length in the Government Gazette, and thereupon the trustees named in such notice and their successors to be appointed as hereinafter provided shall be a body corporate by the name stated in such notice, and shall have perpetual succession and a common seal, and may sue and be sued, and may acquire take and hold any property in trust for the church, and may receive any moneys which have been or shall be given or contributed by any person or persons to be applied to any of the purposes of the church, and may take over any securities for money held by any person or persons on behalf thereof, and may take in the name of such corporate body any securities for money belonging to the church which shall be lent or advanced on account thereof, and shall deal with all such property and securities so as to give effect to the trusts to which they shall be specially subject or when not subject to any express trust in such manner as this Act hereinafter provides or the General Assembly may from time to time direct, but so as not to interfere with the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in the enforcement of trusts.

s. 6

Immediately upon the incorporation of the corporate body of trustees, all property held by any person or persons for or on behalf of the church generally other than property which at the passing of this Act is held on behalf of or occupied or used by or for the purposes of any existing congregation of the church or of the minister thereof and all property held and all securities taken for money advanced by the General Assembly's trustees for and on behalf of the church, and all property situated in any place in which no congregation being or forming part of a settled charge recognised as such by the General Assembly exists at the time of such incorporation, shall without any further conveyance or transfer vest in the corporate body of trustees, and the Registrar-General or the Registrar of Titles (as the case may be) shall make the proper transfer thereof in his register. Provided that if any such property is subject to any mortgage charge or encumbrance it shall not vest in the corporate body of trustees until the mortgage charge or encumbrance has been discharged or the corporate body of trustees by memorandum in writing undertakes to answer any liability in respect of such mortgage charge or encumbrance. Provided also that the properties known as Ormond College the Scotch College and the Presbyterian Ladies' College shall not vest in the corporate body of trustees until the General Assembly by a special vote in that behalf shall so direct.

s. 7

From and after the registration of such resolution, where any persons hold any property in trust for or on behalf of the church, and in case such property is held on behalf of or occupied or used by or for the purposes of any congregation of the church with the consent of the majority of the members and adherents of such congregation present in person or by proxy at a meeting duly convened for that purpose, and with the approval of the General Assembly the trustees or a majority of them may if they think fit consent to a transfer of the property to the corporate body of trustees upon the trusts to which the same is subject, and such transfer when completed and accepted by the corporate body shall from and after the date thereof operate as a discharge of all the trustees from the duties of the trust.

In the circumstances mentioned in the last preceding section, if by reason of death absence from Victoria for six months in succession or any other disability the consent of any trustee to the transfer as aforesaid cannot be obtained, the Moderator may by writing under his hand consent to such transfer in place of any such trustee; and if such consent be published in the Government Gazette and in some newspaper circulating in the place where the property to which the consent refers is situate, and if within a month from the last publication of such advertisements no proceedings be taken therein by the person in whose name such consent is given, such consent shall upon the expiration of such month be as effective for the purpose of this Act as a consent given by the person in whose place the consent is declared to have been given.

s. 9

If in any case the person or all the persons in whom any property is vested die or be absent from Victoria for six months in succession or cannot be found or resign or be removed from office or become otherwise incapable of holding such property, of which incapacity the General Assembly shall be the sole and final judge, and if those who are lawfully authorized to elect or appoint a successor or successors to such person or persons refuse or neglect to do so for the space of one month after being called upon by the Moderator to make such election or appointment, or if there be no person lawfully authorized to elect or appoint such successor or successors, then forthwith the Moderator may by certificate in writing under his hand in the form and to the effect in Part I of the First Schedule to this Act declare that there are no trustees of such property and thereupon such property shall vest in the corporate body of trustees, and the certificate shall have the same effect as if the trustee or trustees who had died or left Victoria or could not be found or had resigned or had been removed from office or become otherwise incapable of holding such property had duly executed a conveyance or transfer of the property in the same manner and for the same estate.

s. 10

Upon obtaining the written consent of the majority of the trustees of any property held by them on behalf of the church (either under their own hands or that of the Moderator as hereinbefore mentioned) to the transfer to the corporate body of trustees of such property, or upon receiving the certificate of the Moderator that there are no trustees of any property as in the last preceding section mentioned and upon receiving the acceptance by the corporate body of trustees of the transfer to it of such property, the Registrar-General or the Registrar of Titles (as the case may be) shall make the proper transfer thereof in his register, and thereupon without further conveyance or transfer the whole estate and interest of the trustees of such property shall vest in such corporate body.