The General Assembly, considering that circumstances may arise in which already existing congregations wish to procure either replacement or additional buildings and that there has not been established any regular mechanism for the Church as a whole to assist in such cases, hereby authorise the Church and Manse Building Fund Committee to make grants and/or loans available subject to the following conditions:
1.1 The Deacons’ Court of the Congregation shall submit a fully documented application in connection with each project to the presbytery of the bounds, whose support for the application is required before the matter can be considered by the Committee.
1.2 In considering an application the Committee shall have regard to the desirability of the project, the standards of the proposed building, the funds available to the congregation from its own resources and funds which may be available from other sources, and the congregation’s capacity to meet the repayments involved and to contribute to Central Funds.
1.3 The Church and Manse Building Fund Committee shall report on each application which it decides to support to the Finance, Law and Advisory Committee, whose decision as to the availability of funds in excess of those already allocated to the Fund shall be final.
2.1 No funds shall be made available to the congregation until it has already gathered a minimum of one-third of the total projected cost of the project.
2.2 The Committee shall not allocate funds by way of grant in excess of one-third of the total cost of the project as originally approved.
2.3 The Committee in determining the level of assistance provided by the Fund shall have regard to the congregation’s own resources and funds which may be available from other sources.
2.4 The Congregation shall be responsible for paying interest on any loan advanced by the Fund at a rate and in a manner specified by the Committee, and also for repaying the sum advanced over a specified period (not to exceed twenty years). The property procured shall be considered as security for this loan.
3.1 All properties procured in this way shall be held under the Model Trust Deed.
3.2 Permission to sell property procured in this way may not be granted within twenty years without a supporting extract minute from the Committee, which may require, in recognition of the grant allocated, the payment of such a sum as shall not exceed the same proportion of the final selling price as the grant was of the original cost of the project.
4. Notwithstanding that the provisions of this Act are not retrospective, they shall be applied to projects at Fortrose and Kirkcaldy which are presently before the Committee.