About corporate structures

Some charity structures are corporate bodies. If you choose a structure that forms a corporate body, the law considers your charity to be a person in the same way as an individual.

This gives your charity the legal capacity to do many things in its own name that a person can do, such as:

• employing paid staff
• delivering charitable services under contractual agreements
• entering into commercial contracts in its own name
• owning freehold or leasehold land or other property

If your charity isn’t a corporate body (‘unincorporated’):

• the trustees are personally liable for what it does
• it won’t be able to enter into contracts or control some investments in its own name
• two or more trustees, a corporate custodian trustee or the charities’ land holding service will have to ‘hold’ any land on your charity’s behalf

More information can be found here