ABSTRACT
Cy-près means ‘as near as possible’. The general principle is that if a charitable gift has failed because it cannot be carried out by the trustees of the testator/testatrix’s will exactly according to his wishes, the trustees may make an application to the Charity Commission1 to apply the gift to another charity whose objects are, as near as possible, to that charity whom the donor intended to benefit. In this way, it may be said that as much charitable good as possible in the circumstances will still come from the donor’s gift as the donor intended.
