FIEC Limited, the trusteeship side of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC), has recently changed its name to The Fellowship Property Trust. They act as holding trustee for a number of independent churches across the country. In many cases they are recommending to the churches that they speak to Church Growth Trust (CGT) to take over the holding trusteeship role. This is what CGT usually calls its custodian trusteeship service.
Where churches, which are unincorporated charities (constitutions or trusts), hold properties or where they are held by separate property trusts, individual (managing) trustees are named on the title at the Land Registry. This means that every time a new trustee is appointed, the title needs to be registered again in the new names. The custodian trusteeship role saves the managing trustees having to do this, as the title to the property is held by the custodian trustee, who is a trust corporation (i.e. in CGT’s case a charitable company). It means that the title does not have to be changed every time a managing trustee is appointed.
For only £100 plus VAT a year CGT not only offers the custodian trusteeship role, but storage of the property deeds (and online access given to the managing trustees) and signs up the church to Stewardship’s Consultancy Helpline. Giles Arnold, CGT’s Chief Executive, has been travelling around the country to meet different churches to talk about this custodian trusteeship role and, where appropriate, local churches are appointing CGT as their holding (custodian) trustee.
