Except as otherwise provided by Sec. 4 of No. 66 of the Acts of 1955, the Board of Trustees shall have the right to use, control, sell, or dispose of all the real estate and personal property now or hereafter belonging to the University of Vermont, belonging to the Vermont Agricultural College, and belonging to any other institution at the time of its union or thereafter, if such union shall be made with this corporation agreeably to this charter; subject, however, to the payment of any debts of any of the institutions existing at the time of such union, and subject to any trusts, duties, and obligations connected therewith, and shall be entitled to receive and use, for the purposes aforesaid, the rents and uses of any of the aforesaid lands, including the rents and uses of all such lands as have been heretofore reserved in any charter of land in this State for the use and benefit of any college, and may have the same rights in respect to the lands, and to any leases of the same, and to any rents arising therefrom, that the institutions respectively now have, and may maintain suits in their own name, or in the name of the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, to recover the same; provided, that the rights of all parties shall remain, and the same defenses shall be had to such suits as if the same were brought in the name and as between the original parties; and the corporation hereby created shall, at all times, assume, discharge, and perform all the debts, duties, trusts, and obligations which the several institutions were subject to, at the time they became united in the corporation known as the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, by virtue of this charter.