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1. Overview
Section 15(4) of the Friendly Societies Act 1894 provided that all the property of a Society shall vest in the trustees of the Society for the time being. Section 16 of the Friendly Societies Act 1894 gave the trustees power to sell and mortgage land except land granted/transferred by the Crown for a specific purpose. A mortgage of such land required the consent of the Governor or Minister as the case may be in writing.
A transfer and mortgage by the trustees of the Society required attestation by all the trustees of the Society and a discharge or partial discharge could be signed by the trustees or a majority of them.
A certificate in the form of the Sixth Schedule to the above Act, under the hand of the Registrar of Co-operative and Financial Institutions of the names of the trustees of any Society or branch was sufficient evidence that the persons named are the trustees of that Society or branch. That certificate when registered at Landgate on payment of the required fee remained in force until superseded by a later certificate.
The certificate was numbered and recorded on the internal Landgate computer system locally known as Ditbook. Any dealing by a Friendly Society could be checked against Ditbook to verify the correctness of the attestation by the trustees.
The Friendly Societies Act 1894 was repealed by the Friendly Societies (Western Australia) Act 1999, which in turn was repealed by the Acts Amendment and Repeal (Financial Sector Reform) Act 1999. Friendly Societies in Western Australia are now regulated by the Commonwealth and are now registered under the Corporations Act 2001 and regulated by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). As an example, the Trustees for the United Ancient Order of Druids is now the Druids Friendly Society Limited.
Documents that are executed by Friendly Societies are now executed in the same manner as any other corporation.