Ralph:

The overwhelming advice is never to accept such a description as
"Permanent Loan" - which many lawyers argue is meaningless as it is a
contradiction in terms.  (With a "loan" the ownership never passes, so the
legal owner - or perhaps their descendants many years later - can always
change their mind and demand its return.)

There is however just one circumstance in which the term can be useful.
That is when the person or organisation possessing the object is not the
legal owner, and the rightful owner cannot reasonably be traced (or
perhaps no longer exists).

Examples in my own experience over the years have included collections of
very old documents and other items that have been held by a local law
firm, perhaps for a matter of hundreds of years, but where there is no
longer any evidence as to ownership.  The law firm cannot "donate" the
material because they know that they are not the owner in law, but instead
wish to transfer their custody permanently to a museum, library  or public
record office.

Another circumstance relates to residual historic property or records of a
public limited company (incorporated company in American law, I think)
after it has been dissolved by members' voluntary liquidation. Under
British law such companies cease to exist permanently 12 months after the
completion of the liquidation, and therefore there is no organisation
there to actually own e.g. trade or historic items on loan to a museum, or
to the final historic records of the company.  Again in such cases the
person or organisation in possession of material the museum may want are
not the legal owners, and therefore cannot give title, but they can
transfer physical possession permanently to the museum, hence a so-called
"permanent loan".


Patrick Boylan

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