The Web Applications Team at Methodist Church House would like to draw Managing Trustees’ attention to the following updates to the Help & Guidance pages on the Property Consents Website:

You may have received a notification from the Local Authority that your Church/Church Hall has been nominated by a local community group to be placed on the List of Assets of Community Value. It is important to know that Managing Trustees can make representations to the Local Authority that the Local Authority should consider when deciding whether or not to place the property on the List.

In light of GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, we have added a notice to the old Data Protection Booklet to indicate that despite the former Data Protection Act 1998 being repealed, Managing Trustees should still refer to the old guidance in relation to Data Subject Access Requests.

The Managing Trustees receive an offer to buy a property – what do they do next? By the time the Managing Trustees receive an offer, the Qualified Surveyor’s Report (“QSR”) will have been approved by TMCP and the Managing Trustees will have marketed the property in line with the advice of the surveyor as set out in the QSR.

A recent Charity Commission investigation provides a helpful reminder to Managing Trustees about the importance of fulfilling charity law requirements when they sell, lease of otherwise dispose of property.

As many of you will know, the new Panel of Solicitors (‘the Panel’) has been running for six months and we are seeing positive results for Managing Trustees in their transactions already.

Updated resources are now available from the data protection page on TMCP's website. TMCP is reviewing the data protection guidance and documents to ensure that they are up-to-date.