# 14 charities hold house to house exemption orders in N Ireland

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2018/09/10/14-charities-hold-house-house-exemption-orders-n-ireland/
- Published: 2018-09-10T11:49:12+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Fourteen charities currently hold exemption orders to carry out house to house
collections across Northern Ireland, according to the latest information from the
Department of Communities.**

 

An exemption order is a document which excuses an organisation pursuing a charitable
purpose from seeking separate licences from each local police station to allow a
house to house collection to take place in that area.

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It does not cover street collections for which permits must be sought from the local
police stations in the areas where a street collection is to take place.

 

The charities with exemption orders include local, national and developing world
charities such as Northern Ireland Institute for the Disabled, Royal Air Forces 
Association, Royal British Legion, the Salvation Army and Trocaire.

 

## How to secure an exemption order

 

If collections are to be regularly carried out province wide then the organisation
may apply to the Charities Team in the [Department of Communities](http://www.communities-ni.gov.uk)
for an exemption order. This avoids any inconvenience from submitting multiple applications
to the police.

 

Before making an exemption order, the Department considers whether there is a desire
to promote house to house collections throughout the whole of Northern Ireland (
or a substantial part of it) and also the ‘track record’ of collections by the organisation
over a reasonable period of time before the application.

 

While there is no legal obligation is placed on holders of an exemption order to
notify the police when and where a collection is to be held, to avoid a number of
organisations collecting in the same area at the same time, it is recommended that
the police are notified of an intention to collect in an area at least six weeks
in advance.

 

Exemption orders are currently made under section 3 of the House to House Charitable
Collections Act (Northern Ireland) 1952. The Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2008
contains provision for a new regulatory regime for public charitable collections,
though no date has been set for bringing the new regulatory regime into operation.

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