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Weak economic growth and increasing competition is still wreaking havoc in the High Street and the quarter that starts in January is often make or break for retailers as it is traditionally the worst trading quarter of their year. Many commercial properties...
You may have good reasons for writing close relatives out of your will but, as any lawyer will tell you, the consequence of doing so can be family discord after you are gone. That was certainly so in one case concerning a father who disinherited his...
Restrictions on land use appear in the title deeds of many properties – but the law permits their deletion or modification if they become obsolete over time or stand in the way of reasonable development. Exactly that happened in one case in which the...
To defeat a claim of direct discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 , the employer must show that the treatment complained of is in pursuit of a legitimate aim and is a proportionate means of achieving that aim. The aim must be objectively and reasonably...
Government regulatory decisions can have an instant and catastrophic impact on businesses, but prompt legal action can ensure that such damage is not unfairly inflicted. The point was made in the case of a company whose licence to warehouse duty suspended...
Although commercial surrogacy businesses have long been banned in the UK, the Court of Appeal recently ruled that a clinical negligence victim would not be breaking the law were she to enter into such an arrangement in California, where a more liberal...
The legal dispute between Elon Musk and Vernon Unsworth, the man who helped to rescue boys trapped in a cave in Thailand, may have dropped out of the press over the last few weeks, but a recent case shows the lack of accuracy of Mr Musk's assertion that...
The 'making tax digital' project will require VAT-registered businesses to submit their VAT returns online from 1 April 2019 and to use accounting software that is integrated with the Government's digital gateway to do it. This in turn means, in effect, that...
The validity of trade marks can be challenged post-registration and that is one good reason why it is essential to enlist professional support in protecting them. In a case on point , the Cypriot authorities had their own disorganisation to blame after they...
The supposition that residential properties are exempt from Capital Gains Tax (CGT) is a common, but incorrect, one. You would think, for example, that if a person only owns one property, sleeps there quite often, has post sent there and tells the council...
A recent case in which a landlord sought repossession of a property from its tenant on the ground that it intended to redevelop the property has gained a great deal of attention, but may not be as important as it first seems. The facts of the case were that...
When parents changed their wills to exclude their son from inheriting their £1 million farm after a family falling-out in 2016, he took the unusual step of challenging their right to do so. Normally, such challenges are made against the estates of...
Home-made contracts, particularly for the sale of land, are a singularly bad idea and can lead to costs that dwarf the modest sums needed to secure proper professional advice. Exactly that happened in one case in which a house purchase contract was so...
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has supported the opinion of the Advocate General that the mere fact that a worker did not apply to take annual leave cannot automatically mean the loss of the right to payment in lieu of untaken leave at the...
When the mother of a teenage daughter who had been taken into care in 2016 with her agreement had another child, the local council's social services department became involved. The woman's daughter had been removed from home as a result of her mother's...
Many people think that the costs and difficulty of litigation mean that it is not worth pursuing relatively small debts. However, a High Court case in which a carpenter won the right to be paid for his work on a building project showed how wrong that...
If your business is struggling to meet VAT and other tax payments on time, take advice quickly. The decision by the Government to restore 'Crown preference' regarding debts due to the Exchequer from April 2020 could impact negatively on you. Leaving aside...
Recently, Santander was fined more than £30 million for failing to distribute more than £180 million held in deceased customers' accounts to their personal representatives or entitled beneficiaries. More than 40,000 account holders were involved...
When an 18-year-old woman bought a derelict end terrace property in London in 2006 and sold it to developers the following year, she made no entry on her tax return, believing that principal private residence relief applied. Having made a 'discovery' of the...
When a construction dispute arises and a pay less notice is issued, the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 requires that the notice should specify the sum considered to be due and the basis on which that sum is calculated. In a recent...
