The Parish Lands Charity, Registered Number 243224

For 452 years the Chamber of Feoffees was governed by the Charter of establishment granted by King Henry VIII and such Charitable laws which prevailed over that period. By the end of the 20th century this legal framework was becoming increasingly complicated and made administration of the affairs of the Feoffees more complex than it needed to be. Advice was sought from the Charity Commission as to how the affairs of the Feoffees might be managed in a more efficient way.

This resulted in the Charity Commission promoting a Scheme to govern the operation of the Feoffees and this became known as the Parish Lands Charity which was implemented on 22nd May 1998. The provisions of the Scheme ran to 10 pages of A4 paper, covering such matters as the appointment of Trustees and Officers; the management of their meetings and the transfer of all of the properties of the Feoffees to the Official Custodian of Charities to be held in trust for the Chamber of Feoffees. This latter point was helpful in that it removed the need for Feoffees land and property to be held in the names of individual Feoffees.

The Parish Lands Charity lasted for just over 20 years until it was wound up on 8th January 2019 following the transfer of all of the Feoffees land and property to the Colyton Chamber of Feoffees Charitable Incorporated Organization (CIO). During this period of 20 years Charity law was developing quite quickly and in the Charities Act 2011 provision was made for some charities to apply to become a Charitable Incorporated Organization (CIO). The Chamber of Feoffees took advantage of this provision for two main reasons – first, the ability of a CIO to hold land in its own name; and secondly, a CIO could make provision in its Constitution to limit the financial liabilities of individual Feoffees. The Colyton Chamber of Feoffees has a new Charitable Registration Number of 1169081 and a Company Number of CEO08736.