Acts of Administration
Acts of administration (or simple or ordinary administration) are those legal acts that have as their object the preservation of property (or of a particular asset), its fructification, and the improvement of its productive capacity, even if this occurs through the disposition of the income produced by the property itself. These acts are contrasted with acts of disposition, or acts exceeding ordinary (or simple) administration, which are those by which the property or a part of it is alienated, or a real right of guarantee is constituted over it, or its marketability is significantly diminished, or its preservation is endangered.
The distinction between these two categories of acts is of considerable importance both in canon law and in civil law.
In canon law (can. 532 § 2, 1527), acts exceeding ordinary administration cannot be validly performed by administrators of ecclesiastical goods without the authorization (licentia) of the competent ecclesiastical authority. Since there is no legal definition of this category of acts, the notion must be derived from doctrine and from the system of the CIC; to this end, one must also consider the expression contained in can. 1533 (an act by which the condition of the Church could become worse), and the acts enumerated in cann. 1538, 1541, and 1542.
Similarly, in Italian law, acts exceeding ordinary administration cannot be performed without the authorization of the competent authority by: a) certain ecclesiastical entities (congruous benefices, confraternities not having as their exclusive or prevailing purpose worship, fabbricerie); b) most public entities; c) the legal representatives of incapable persons (though in this case not all acts of this category are always regulated in the same way); d) the mandatory holding a general mandate.
In Italian law, too, there is no definition of acts exceeding ordinary administration; the law most often provides enumerations (rarely exhaustive) of such acts (cf. arts. 320, 374, 375, 394, 493, 1572, 1708 Cod. civ., and numerous special laws). In particular, with regard to ecclesiastical entities, art. 13 of the law of 27 May 1929, no. 848, lists as acts exceeding ordinary administration the following: alienations, voluntary redemption of censi and canones, loans, acts involving the felling of tall trees, the collection and investment of capital, leases of immovable property for more than nine years, and finally, lawsuits, both active and passive, concerning the patrimonial assets of the entities.