Former Charities

When a charity is removed from the Scottish Charity register, it still has a responsibility under charity law to prepare and submit accounts to us for any charitable assets held at the time of removal.

These include:

• any property previously acquired
• any property representing income previously acquired
• the income from such property.

Read our guidance on our Monitoring Under Section 19 for further information.

When can a charity be removed from the Register?

A charity may be removed from the Register at its own request, or because we decide to remove it.

What happens after a charity has been removed from the Register?

We will ask the former charity to provide the following information:

• A statement of charitable assets at the date of removal from the Register.
• A statement of the proposed use of these charitable assets.
• Any outstanding accounts, if appropriate, which were due to be filed with us up to the date of removal from the Register.
• Confirmation of the chosen accounting reference date for reporting to us.

From the information supplied, we will decide whether the former charity has ongoing responsibilities as set out in charity law.

What happens if OSCR decides there are ongoing responsibilities?

If we decide that ongoing responsibilities do exist, the former charity will be required to continue to submit annual accounts to us within nine months of its chosen accounting reference date until the assets - or any income from them - have been used up and are no longer held by the former charity.

Read our Monitoring Under Section 19 - Report on Work to Date for details of our work in this area.