Snippets from The Reduced Law Dictionary by Roderick Ramage
Corporations as joint tenants
The QBD decision in Law Guarantee and Trust Society and Hunter v Bank of England (1890) led to the Bodies Corporate (Joint Tenancy) Act 1899. At common law, a corporation aggregate could not be a joint tenant with an individual or another corporation. By this Act a body corporate may acquire and hold real or personal property in joint tenancy as if it were an individual and may be a joint tenant with an individual or another body corporate. On the dissolution of a body corporate, which is joint tenant of any property, the property devolves on the other joint tenant.
Eleemosynary charities
Lilian Armitage left her residuary estate to Norwich and Sheringham Town Councils, to make annual payments to nursing homes for elderly women. In Re Armitage’s Will Trusts (1972), the court held that Norwich Corporation had power to accept the gift but Sheringham Council did not. The latter’s power to accept gifts under the Local Government Act 1933 was limited by s268(3), which prohibited the acceptance of property
