Report on Unincorporated Associations

It has been estimated that there are approximately 45,000 voluntary organisations in Scotland, the majority of which are unincorporated associations.

Such associations vary in size and structure and the objects and purposes range from purely charitable purposes at one end to purely member-interested purposes at the other.

Within that range are a large number of associations which are not registered as charities but which are established for public benefit purposes (making up, with charities, the 'Third Sector').

Scotland shares with the other parts of the United Kingdom a law of unincorporated associations which rests upon common law and has been little developed by statute.

Its most striking feature is the absence of legal personality accorded to associations and clubs which do not choose to establish themselves as companies or as some other form of incorporated body.

The current law does not recognise the existence of such organisations as separate legal entities. The Commission states that the definition of unincorporated associations should be an association which should have at least two members; that its objects do not include making a profit for its members; and that it has adopted a constitutive document containing certain minimum specified provisions.

Minimum provisions are: the name of the association; the purpose for which it exists; the criteria for membership; the procedure for election or appointment of those managing the association; the powers and duties of its office-bearers (if any); the rules for distribution of its assets on dissolution; and, the procedure for amendment of the constitutive document.