Solad Sakandar Mohammed & Ors v Sabir Ahmed Ebrahim Daji & Ors

In determining the terms of a charitable appeal, the court must ascertain objectively the intention of the donors and lenders from the terms on which contributions were made, construed against the factual background known to them. Subjective intention is excluded. Fundraising arrangements, the identity and capacity of fundraisers, the intended beneficiaries, local control and the use of the property may be relevant evidence.

Where a charitable trust is initially expressed generally or vaguely, trustees may execute a more specific declaration, provided it does not conflict with the donors’ intention. A trust may already be constituted when contributions are received, even if the later declaration is executory. A subsequent payment or pressured document cannot alter the trust retrospectively.

The claim concerned the ownership and trust status of the Abbey Mills site in London, acquired in 1996 for use as a mosque and community centre. The registered proprietors were three individuals, including the First and Second Claimants and the Fourteenth Defendant.

The Claimants sought declarations that the Land was held under a London trust, that the Fourteenth Defendant had been removed and replaced as trustee, and, alternatively, that a cy-près occasion had arisen under the Charities Act 2011. The Defendants contended that the Land was held under a 1975 trust associated with the Dewsbury Trust and Charity 505732. The central issues were the objective intention of the contributors, the legal effect and timing of the 1996 declaration, the validity of the trustee replacement, and whether the later documents had legal effect.

The Claimants succeeded on the property and removal claims. The cy-près claim did not fall to be determined.

1. Terms of the charitable appeal. The objective intention of donors and lenders was to be ascertained from the terms on which they contributed money, construed against the factual background known to them. Their subjective intentions were irrelevant. The court considered the purpose of the appeal, the London source of the funds, the intended local use of the mosque, the identity of the proposed trustees, the absence of a default rule that all Tablighi Jamaat property belonged to the Dewsbury Trust, and the surrounding representations.
2. Agency and later declarations. Whether the fundraisers were legally agents of the Dewsbury Trust was not itself determinative, although any agency arrangement could be relevant evidence of what donors had been told. The funds were held for the London mosque and community-centre project, not for the Dewsbury Trust. The 1996 Declaration of Trust was probably executed after November 1996, but it was within the authority conferred by the contributors and validly declared the intended charitable trust.
3. Constitution of the trust. The trust had already been constituted when the purchase completed. The later £100,000 payment by the Dewsbury Trust did not alter the trusts. Documents signed in 1998 and 1999 under pressure, expressing willingness to transfer the Land to the Dewsbury Trust, had no legal effect and would, if acted upon, have constituted a serious breach of trust.
4. Trustee replacement. The Fourteenth Defendant was refusing to act within clause 8(c) of the 1996 deed and section 36(1) of the Trustee Act 1925. The meetings were properly convened, and the amendments to the meeting provisions were validly made under section 280 of the Charities Act 2011. The resolutions removing him and appointing the Third Claimant were valid.
5. The 20 November 2018 deed confirmed the appointment and engaged section 40 of the Trustee Act 1925, vesting the trust property, apart from the Land pending alteration of the register, in the three continuing trustees. The register was to be altered accordingly.