63. Public Trustee may administer property of charitable trust without trustee

Amended

Last amended by an amending law of 2021. 2 amendments in all.

(1)

Whenever it appears to the Public Trustee that a charitable trust has no trustee, the Public Trustee may send by registered post a letter to the person in apparent control of any property subject to the trust requesting the names and addresses of the trustees (if any) of the trust.

(2)

If the Public Trustee does not receive any answer to the letter within one month of sending it, the Public Trustee may publish in the Gazette and send to the person mentioned in subsection (1), by registered post, a notice that at the end of one month from the date of that notice, unless cause is shown to the contrary, the trust is deemed to have no trustee.

(3)

At the end of the time mentioned in the notice, unless cause to the contrary is previously shown by any trustee of the trust, or if the Public Trustee receives an answer to the effect that the trust has no trustee, the Public Trustee —

(a)

may declare that he or she undertakes to administer the property subject to the trust provisionally; and

(b)

must publish notice thereof in the Gazette, and on the publication in the Gazette of the notice all property, movable and immovable of any description, subject to the trust vests in the Public Trustee as provisional trustee of the trust.

(4)

The Public Trustee as such provisional trustee may apply to the court by originating application for the appointment of new trustees to administer the trust and on the appointment of the new trustees all property subject to the trust vests in them.

(5)

All costs and expenses incurred by the Public Trustee in exercising the powers conferred by this section must be paid out of the assets of the trusts concerned.