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THE PROPERTY HANDBOOK
SECTION 01
Purchase of property
General guidelines
Ask yourselves how this purchase will fit the mission of the congregation.
Once there is a written clear answer to this question, the rest should flow quite easily.
Allow sufficient time, and consult as early as possible with the next people in the chain.
• Allow at least two months to prepare your application, and to obtain the approval of
the congregation, presbytery and the Trustees.
• Talk early on to your presbytery/UDC and Secretary to the Trustees about your
general plans and time frames. As each step comes closer, it will help to make
early contact (even informally and in confidence) to alert them that decisions are
underway. Challenging or unusual proposals may take extra time.
• Find out from your presbytery clerk when Presbytery’s Property Committee
meets, as generally this committee will consider the application and then make
a recommendation to presbytery. Presbyteries normally meet monthly. Some
property and finance committees are authorised to act as a commission of
presbytery for property transaction applications. You should have your application
to this committee, through the presbytery clerk, at least a week before it meets.
• The Trustees generally meet monthly (apart from the Christmas break), and
applications need to be received at least a week before the meeting, in order for the
documentation to be summarised and circulated with the agenda papers. Contact
the Secretary to the Trustees for details.
• It may save time if you can make direct contact with the Church Architecture
Reference Group regional convenor (see the Yearbook) before your plans are well
advanced, and before your application goes to Presbytery.
Remember this will be an asset held in trust for the congregation of the future as well
as the present.
All parties need to be involved in the decision-making. The asset does not belong to
just one little group of the congregation. It is an asset, to be held in trust, for the benefit
of many others.