charities and disposals of leases

[tatt]

a local charity surrendered (free!) a long lease on a building to the local council - because they said they couldn't get new Trustees to run the building. The land is subject to a planning application and the district council claim to have acquired the building "by default" (strong smell of fish). The Trustees wrote to the local paper saying they wanted to give up but there was no formal notice under the Charities Act of a disposal of land. Does a lease with 60 years remaining count as land? If what the Trustees did was illegal is the contract void and if so who gets the lease now the charity has been wound up?

Trustees couldn't have sold the lease, wasn't anything in their documents to deal with winding up but the lease itself required Council's approval for disposal - and that wouldn't have been given.

anyone?

Hmmm. As far as i know a charity that winds up has to offere it's assets (of any kind) to another charity, prefrably with compatible aims and objectives - but another charity, anyway.
It may be that the lease they had was not transferable...
If it was not transferable, it may be that the council are operating within their obligation to get market rates for council land / assets, unless there are specific covenants.

Why couldn't they get Trustees?

It could well be something fishy.

The Charity Commission website covers loads of legal stuff about charities - have you loked?

Long story but its an expensive building to run and the poeple who were involved were, how do I put it - volatile? At least half the people here didn't realise there was a long lease.

Looked on the CC website but it wasn't obvious to me if disposing of a long lease had the same rules as land (you have to advertise what you're doing). I asked the Charities Commission and apparently it does come under the same law.

I think the surrender of the lease may not have been legal because they didn't advertise it and give people time to object. Don't want to harass the Trustees (they did an important job for years, whatever went wrong at the end) but if the transaction was void and the lease was still valid it might be used to negotiate something good for the area I live in.