When you state you validate transparency and the validity of the charity commission in regulation of charities, does this take in to account half are government lackies, and the other half active members of charities lobbying for funds and service from the government,surely, this indicates the Charity Commission is not neither neutral or unbiased, as they are too, active members of the corporate 3rd sector lobbying for Plc status for charities with over £20m turnover a year,and, excluding and failing to consult the very people they offer 'services' too. The Minister for disabled seems to suggest Charities are going to get exclusion from court action even when providing no access for grass roots, or poor services. The Charity Commission surely cannot be relied upon when its commissioners have a vested interested in feathering their own job prospects ?

Why aren't the Charity commission executives, neutral by law ? couldn't be because they set their own guidelines ! Could I suggest 'Intelligent' giving, should aslo include moral, ethical too ? When is the Charity Commmission to be reviwed by the Government ? There have been many complaints they are actively operating user/stakeholder/ exclusion, by alterning remits. This is NOT ethical and virtual discriminations by any other name.

OK SimonK... here it is!
The charities were to get equal shares of the estate above the inheritance tax threshold.

The inheritance tax allowance in this case was to be doubled (by drawing on the allowance of the deceased's late spouse, something allowed by the change in legislation). The charities involved were arguing that only a single allowance should apply - which if they took the case further and won, would have meant they could have an extra £312K between them. (And the main beneficiaries would, of course, lose that amount between them.) They were questioning whether my late relative understood the inheritance tax rules and intended that the double rate should apply.

This was a spurious argument. The fact is that HM Revenue and Customs had already agreed the double rate allowance: according to their rules it does not need to be demonstrated that the person understood the rules about the transfer, THEY DON'T EVEN NEED TO HAVE BEEN AWARE OF THIS POSSIBILITY IN THE FIRST PLACE!! As it happens, my late relative was VERY well aware, and did understand - and this was demonstrated.

We know that our late relative would have been deeply upset and appalled by their actions. We are all very appreciative of his gift - and so should they be!

It may well be that others who had intended to leave monies above the inheritance tax threshold to charities will now elect to have inheritance tax paid on their estates - and charities will get nothing....

What was their argument for trying to claim more? From the figures you give, I'm guessing that the will said something along the lines of, "I leave £x to charities A, B, C, D, E and F". You interpreted this to mean £x to divide between the six charities, whereas (at least some of) the charities initially interpreted it to mean £x for each of them.

I'm not taking sides at all, but in any dispute I always err towards assuming good faith in all parties - cock-up rather than conspiracy. Knowing your relative well, you would have had a good understanding of what their wishes were - you may even have had discussions with them and known exactly how much they intended to leave. But it's not unknown - indeed, it's not even all that unusual - for people to leave more to charities than to their families. Is it possible that, only having the words as they were written down to go on, the charities genuinely believed that their interpretation was correct rather than this being "an attempt to get more than was intended from the estate"?

Incidentally, you should be able to read the whole article if you register (free) on the third sector site.

Thanks for your comment, SimonK and I have tried to access the article you mention. I couldn’t but at least saw the opening lines. You are right, the case with my family is entirely different.

Here 3 of the 6 charities involved, led by Cancer Research UK were trying to get a bigger share for themselves. I remain unclear as to whether all 6 would have benefited from the claim, but assuming they would this could have meant that each charity ended up with about 4.5 times as much money as the individual family members. Since they have dropped this upsetting and spurious case they will each receive about 75% as much as each of the family members. A good amount and one that none of us would have dreamt of questioning in any way.

They argue that they are simply fulfilling their duty in ensuring they get what they are entitled to. The implication is that the other three charities – decent enough not to engage in this – were failing in their duties….. No, this was clearly an attempt to get more than was intended from the estate. It’s outrageous and I remain disgusted that charities would behave in this way. There is a huge temptation to take this further, to ‘go public’. This must be happening to other families – particularly by some of the biggest charities who have the resources to aggressively pursue anything they think they may get. I suspect that they only get away with it BECAUSE they are charities, i.e. people may think, oh well, they are a charity after all. It's not right.

Does anyone have any thoughts on raising awareness of issues like this? And are there others out there who have had a similar experience?

An article in this week's Third Sector magazine - http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/channels/Finance/Article/918123/Disgruntled... - suggests that this issue of conflicts between family members and charities is becoming more common. I'll say now that I think some of what that article says is unfortunate, and I would hate for the previous poster to think that I was associating him/her with any notion of "spurious claims". If anything, it seems that his or her experience was the opposite, where it was the charities making spurious claims.

Nevertheless, there's some very difficult issues involved in it all. As the article says, charities are legally obliged to obtain what they are entitled to. But it's also true that families have a legal right to challenge wills that don't make provision for them. And the reputational risk for charities of handling it badly is enormous - I don't suppose Anonymous J will be giving more money to the charities involved in the future.

I don't really have the answer, but part of it must surely be better communication. As soon as lawyers' letters start flying, something has already gone wrong.

I know that many charities do a great deal of worthy work, but my family has recently had a bad experience. A family member left a considerable legacy equally between a number of charities. Some of these, led by Cancer Research UK, questionned the will in a clear effort to gain a greater share of the estate - at the expense of family beneficiaries. Although they eventually dropped the issue, this caused a great deal of upset and very negative feelings towards said charities.

I'm sure that this kind of bad (and seemingly ungrateful!) behaviour on the part of some charities happens regularly.
It seems to me that the fact that they do good work, does not mean they should have license to behave in this way.

I'd be interested to know:
- whether others have had similar experiences
- what actions we could consider taking
- any other thoughts or comments on this

Is it always 5.18pm on February 5th in IG-land? What does this mean for your deadlines?!

As far as I know, all these people pass on all they raise to the charity.
Using an agency, the charity will pay for each one signed up. Using its own staff, just have the staff costs, processing costs etc.
But no-one paying only a proportion of what they raise.

If you sign up and cancel a few weeks later, up to you. Some people won't cancel for many years - how much are their donations worth compared to signup costs?

I agree with the boycott. These people are a pestilential nuisance. In days gone by I voluntered to raise money for charities, starting as a child doing a bob-a-job jobs. I never kept a penny and it certainly wasn't a way of earning money. The fact is that these people in the street wearing vests of various charities are a little industry which pays charities a proportion of what they raise, and who knows how much that is? There no way I would pay one and not just do I boycott them I will not give to a charity that uses these parasites.

On top of that, anyone who hands over their details to a person in the street these days is simply asking for trouble. The government is incapable of minding information of this sort, as it has shown repeatedly.

Intelligent Giving is 100% right and kudos to them for raising the issue and using it issue to gain some publicity.

Paul Joseph

What are we supposed to read in your post Andy R? The relevance of Oxfam CEO's salary is what exactly?

Don't shoot the messenger

This site is fantastic, I work in the sector and am keen to ensure that the donor gift produces value for money outcomes. Check out the salary of Oxfam's CEO and then have a look at a few others....