Author: Wellers

Is Your Landlord Harassing You? You Don’t Have to Just Grin and Bear It

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Tenants have a right peacefully to enjoy their homes, free from harassment by their landlords. A judge succinctly made that point in awarding substantial compensation to a couple whose landlord was anxious to see the back of them so he could refurbish and sell their home with vacant possession.

The couple were tenants of a studio flat within a house in multiple occupation. Their landlord wished to convert the property back into a single dwelling and market it without any residents in situ. All the property’s other occupants had moved on, but the couple for a long time steadfastly declined to leave. Following their eventual departure, they launched proceedings.

Ruling on the matter, the judge found that the landlord was prepared to use whatever means were at his disposal to secure their departure. He conducted a campaign to make their lives uncomfortable enough to drive them from their flat. Amongst other things, he cut off their internet service, switched off their gas boiler and installed CCTV in the property for no good reason. He made vile and malicious allegations against them and regularly reported them to the police, who unsurprisingly took no action.

He and others made frequent, unnecessary visits to the flat, gaining unwarranted entry, often without notice. There was no desistence from such conduct, even after he was told that the couple were expecting their first child. When they still did not move out, he took matters into his own hands and decided to eject them himself.

He or his agents changed the locks whilst the couple were out and dumped some of their belongings outside. Having nowhere else to go, they regained access and tried to continue living in the flat, placing cardboard on the floor in lieu of a bed. Only after they were offered temporary council accommodation did they finally move out.

The court found that the landlord’s reprehensible conduct was designed to oust the couple by unlawful means by doing whatever was necessary, however improper, to secure that end. It constituted harassment and trespass to both property and goods. He repudiated the lease and breached the couple’s right to quiet enjoyment of their home. He delayed performance of his legal obligation to protect their deposit.

The landlord was ordered to pay the couple more than £45,000, including £25,000 for the anxiety they endured and £10,000 in aggravated and exemplary damages. Such an award was, the court found, amply justified.

Making a Will? You Mustn’t Forget Your Family and Financial Dependants

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When making your will, you may, for one reason or another, choose to distribute your estate unevenly between your loved ones. However, as a High Court ruling showed, you are under an overriding duty to make reasonable provision for members of your family and anyone else who depends upon you financially.

By his will, a man bequeathed £10,000 to each of his three adult children. He left the remainder of his estate, which was worth about £475,000 in total, to his daughter. His two sons subsequently launched proceedings under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 on the basis that the will did not provide for their reasonable needs. They valued their claims against the estate, in total, at more than £250,000.

Ruling on the matter, the Court noted that the man had evidently decided to leave the lion’s share of his estate to his daughter because he regarded his sons as not having behaved well. He was only deterred from cutting his sons out of his will altogether by a solicitor’s sensible advice.

Rejecting the younger son’s claim, the Court noted that he owned his family home and two other properties, with combined equity in the region of £240,000, together with his own profitable business. His income was relatively modest but was sufficient to meet his reasonable needs both now and in the foreseeable future. The gift of £10,000 was sufficient to make reasonable provision for him.

The older son was in a very different position in that he was chronically disabled and dependent on others’ help for many day-to-day tasks. In receipt of benefits, he lived with a friend in her housing association property. From the fact that he had sufficient spare cash to spend on gambling, the Court inferred that he had more than enough money to meet his current, modest needs. On the other hand, his condition was likely to deteriorate in the future, resulting in an increasing need for care.

In awarding the older son an additional £25,000 from the estate, the Court found that it was unreasonable for his particular needs relating to his disabilities not to have been recognised in the will. The money would be placed in trust to cover his care costs. Any sum remaining in the trust fund on his death would revert to his sister.

Religious Leader’s Employment Contract ‘Was Illegally Performed’

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Those who seek the protection of the law with metaphorical dirty hands are likely to receive short shrift. An Employment Tribunal (ET) powerfully made that point in the case of a religious leader who had engaged in tax evasion.

The man launched proceedings after his engagement as a temple’s head priest was terminated. Following a hearing, the ET found that he was an employee and that his dismissal was unfair. His complaints that he had not received the National Minimum Wage or holiday pay to which he was entitled were also upheld.

The ET found, however, that he and the employer had agreed at the outset that he would be treated as self-employed. That was a mischaracterisation of their true relationship. He either knew or ought to have known that he was, in truth, an employee.

The ET was satisfied that he knew from the start that the employer would not be deducting Income Tax or National Insurance Contributions (NICs) from his pay via the PAYE system. Over a period of three years, he took no steps himself to declare his income from his work at the temple to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). His failure to pay tax and NICs on that income was neither careless nor inadvertent, but deliberate and seriously wrong.

The employer turned a blind eye and its failure to take steps to ensure that he was declaring his income to HMRC, in circumstances where it knew that it was not doing so, was at best reckless and seriously wrong. However, the man was, if anything, more at fault in that he knew for a fact that no tax or NICs were being paid on his income, either by the employer or by him. His conduct was extremely serious and amounted to tax evasion.

Although there was no suggestion that his employment contract was itself illegal, the ET found that it was performed in an illegal manner. On that basis, the entirety of his claim was dismissed. Given that his complaints were otherwise meritorious, the ET recognised that this was a severe sanction.

However, when his receipt of voluntary donations from his congregation was taken into account, the sums in unpaid tax and NICs were very substantial and were likely to far exceed any compensation he might have been awarded. There was thus a real risk of him being unjustly enriched were he to succeed in his claim. Given the central public importance of upholding the integrity of the tax and justice systems, the outcome of the case was, the ET ruled, proportionate.

If you have an employment law dispute of any kind please do get in contact.

The Validity of a Pre-Nuptial Agreement Often Depends on Top-Quality Legal Advice

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Pre-nuptial agreements (PNAs) which are not entered into freely or which have unfair results will generally not be worth the paper they are written on. However, as a High Court case showed, judges are far more likely to treat them as valid if they are signed after taking independent legal advice.

The case concerned a PNA executed by a couple about three months before they married. The husband, an extremely successful financier, had a net worth of about £32.5 million at the time and had continued to prosper mightily since. The wife had not much more than £60,000 in assets. Their marriage lasted about 14 years, yielding two children, before the wife petitioned for divorce.

In accordance with the terms of the PNA, the husband offered the wife £11.75 million with a view to achieving a clean break. That represented a housing fund of £4.75 million and income-producing capital of £7 million. In contending for more extensive provision, however, the wife boldly argued that the PNA should be wholly ignored.

Ruling on the matter, the Court noted that, prior to signing the PNA, the couple had each received independent legal advice from highly regarded family solicitors. The equal sharing principle was not ignored and the PNA, which also made very generous provision for child maintenance, would have been torn up had the marriage lasted 25 years.

The Court acknowledged that the couple had had what was described as ‘the mother of all arguments’ prior to signing the PNA. However, it was a two-way argument and they had time to cool off prior to signing the document. The husband had made it plain that there would be no marriage without a PNA, but that was commonplace. Overall, the Court was not satisfied that the wife had been placed under undue pressure to enter into the PNA.

In reaching the very clear conclusion that the PNA could not be ignored, the Court found that a fair deal had been struck. It certainly did not represent a capitulation by the wife. The ruling meant that the wife and children would be provided for in accordance with the husband’s offer.

Giving guidance for the future, the Court noted that litigants should be aware that it is a significant step to instruct lawyers to prepare a PNA. Such agreements are intended to bring certainty and minimise the risk of subsequent dispute. In the absence of something fundamental that undermines their validity, judges are highly likely to give them full effect.

Find out more about our experience in drafting and advising on prenuptial agreements.

Neighbours’ Disputes – Negotiate Now or Pay a High Price Later

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Many neighbours’ disputes may, at least to an outsider, appear trifling. However, as a High Court ruling showed, they matter very much to those involved and, in the absence of amicable negotiation, they can very easily become ruinously expensive.

A landowner asserted that his neighbours’ right of way over a track that crossed his land was limited to a width of 2.15 metres. The neighbours, however, asserted that the correct figure was 2.5 metres. The dispute blew up into full-scale litigation after the landowner erected steel bollards at each end of the track that only permitted vehicles the width of a quad bike to pass by.

Following a trial, the neighbours succeeded on the principal issue concerning the track’s width. Although certain other issues were decided against them, the judge ordered the landowner to pay 75 per cent of their legal costs. Both sides sought to challenge aspects of the judge’s ruling but, after detecting no legal flaw in his conclusions, the Court rejected their appeals.

The Court noted that the neighbours had incurred legal costs of £427,000 in fighting the case, not including the costs of the appeal. The landowner’s costs budget was £218,000, but his bill was estimated to be up to 10 per cent higher than that. Emphasising that the dispute had been conducted in an entirely disproportionate way, at entirely disproportionate cost, the Court hoped that any further disagreements arising could be resolved in a sensible and amicable fashion, without further expense.

You Are Duty-Bound Reasonably to Provide for Your Dependants in Your Will

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Making reasonable provision in your will for those who depend upon you financially is a duty, not a choice. A judge made that point in coming to the aid of two sisters who were left in acute need when their father bequeathed them nothing.

In a will made four months before he died, their father left the entirety of his estate – consisting of his home, which was worth £355,000 – to their brother, who lived in the property. The sisters launched proceedings under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975.

Ruling on the matter, the judge noted that both sisters were in their 60s and in poor health. Their father had, from time to time, helped them out with gifts of money and their disinheritance had left their finances in a parlous state. Their brother, aged in his 70s, had almost entirely failed to engage in the proceedings.

The judge found that the father, whilst anxious to ensure that his son continued to have a roof over his head, had also stated his intention to make provision for his other children. In failing to reflect that intention in his will, he had failed to make reasonable provision for the sisters. In order to meet their reasonable needs, the judge ruled that one sister should have £70,000 from the estate and the other £90,000.

Adopted Pensioner’s Quest to Find Her Birth Parents Finally Bears Legal Fruit

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Many adopted people feel driven to embark on long and demanding quests to find their birth parents. In one case, decades of painstaking research paid off when a woman in her late 70s was granted a court order that completed her sense of identity.

The woman was placed with adoptive parents within days of her birth in 1945. The couple told her at an early age that she was adopted and that her birth parents were each married to someone else, making it impossible for her to remain with them. The woman grew to adulthood, left home, married and had children and grandchildren of her own.

She was in middle age when she began her hunt for her birth parents. She had little success in the early days, but the advent of the internet changed all that. With her son’s help, she found out her mother’s name and that she had migrated to Australia soon after the Second World War. She had since engaged positively with members of her mother’s large family and had travelled to Australia to meet them.

Identifying her birth father, who, together with her birth mother and adoptive parents, was long-since deceased, posed a more difficult challenge. Via a genealogical website, she obtained a DNA match with a third cousin who put her in touch with other members of the family. The niece and nephew of the man she believed to be her birth father consented to DNA testing, which confirmed a 98.32 per cent probability that they were blood related.

In granting the woman a declaration of parentage, the High Court found that the man was, on the balance of probabilities, her birth father. For her own sake and that of her children and grandchildren, it was important to her to establish a sense of familial identity. To her great joy, she had formed a bond with members of her birth father’s family with whom she was in regular contact. The declaration opened the way for her to seek the man’s formal recognition as her father on her birth certificate.

You Don’t Have to Put Up With Online Harassment

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In an era of easy, internet-based mass communication, reputations can, without a shred of justification, be destroyed at the click of a button. As a High Court case showed, however, victims of such behaviour can, with expert legal assistance, achieve both vindication and just compensation.

The case concerned the founder of a spiritual group who was the target of videos posted online and emails sent to recipients who possibly numbered in the thousands. They contained allegations of immoral and criminal conduct against him that were of the utmost gravity.

The publications caused great distress to both the founder and his family. Despite his extensive efforts to have the videos removed from the internet, they continued to surface from time to time, resulting in an exodus of members from his organisation. Some of the videos had received tens of thousands of views and he found himself constantly having to explain that the allegations were false.

He issued proceedings against two men who were said to be responsible for the publications, alleging defamation, harassment, breach of data protection and misuse of private information. Their defences to the claim were later struck out by a judge due to their failure to comply with court orders and judgment was entered against them.

One of them agreed to settle the claim against him by paying a global sum of more than £130,000 in damages and costs. He publicly apologised to the founder and accepted that the allegations were untrue, were seriously harmful and included some intrusive speculation into the founder’s private life. The proceedings continued against the other man, however.

In ordering the other man to pay £35,000 in damages, plus legal costs, the Court found that it was a case of serious online harassment. The award reflected the absence of an apology and was designed to vindicate the founder’s reputation. An injunction was issued which, amongst other things, forbade him from making any further publications concerning the founder.

Stamp Duty Land Tax – When is a Property Unsuitable for Use as a Dwelling?

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A newly purchased house may require a great deal of renovation and repair work to render it habitable – but does that mean it is unsuitable for use as a dwelling for the purposes of Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT)? A tribunal considered that issue in a guideline case.

A couple paid over £1.7 million for a detached house that had in the past been tenanted but which had been empty for some months prior to its acquisition. Amidst signs of vandalism, the property was strewn with rubbish and the kitchen gave off an unbearable smell. The boiler was hanging off the wall, the basement was flooded by leaking water pipes, utilities could not safely be used and the property’s electrical wiring was in a life-threatening condition.

The couple paid £177,000 in SDLT on purchasing the property, but subsequently asserted that they were entitled to a rebate of almost £100,000 on the basis that it was not suitable for use as a dwelling on the date of acquisition. The matter came before the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) after HM Revenue and Customs took a contrary view.

Ruling on the matter, the FTT accepted that the state of the property was not such that a reasonable buyer might be expected to move in straight away. Amongst other things, the property required complete rewiring and installation of a new boiler and pipework. Broken windows and doors required repair to make the property secure and skip loads of rubbish had to be removed.

In rejecting the couple’s challenge, however, the FTT noted that suitability for use as a dwelling house is not equated with immediate readiness for occupation. In the context of SDLT, only very serious, fundamental problems – such as radioactivity or a risk of imminent structural collapse – are sufficient to render a property unsuitable for such use.

Whilst accepting that it would have been dangerous for the couple to move into the property immediately, the FTT noted that the relevant defects were curable. They were not fundamental and did not come anywhere near the threshold at which a reduced rate of SDLT is payable.

Ex-Couple Spend an ‘Absurd’ £5 Million Plus Litigating About Their Child

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Disputes between separated couples as to how their children should be provided for can, in the absence of compromise, sadly reach epic proportions. That was certainly so in one extraordinary case in which a couple spent over £5 million between them litigating over the future of their son.

The couple, who were not formally married, lived a remarkably lavish lifestyle during their long relationship. They viewed the birth of their longed-for child, following IVF treatment, as a miracle. Their separation, however, raised the curtain on relentless litigation concerning the boy. Their expenditure on legal costs was estimated to amount to more than £60,000 for each month of his young life.

The dispute entered a new chapter when the mother sought a carer’s allowance and financial provision for the child from the immensely wealthy father. Ruling on the matter, the High Court found that the litigation arose almost entirely from the father’s relentless, unsympathetic and oppressive conduct. Whilst clearly having exceptional business acumen, he had shown almost no emotional intelligence.

The Court noted that the child was apparently thriving. However, if he were to learn in later life that his parents had – at such completely absurd cost – spent their entire time arguing about him, he would be appalled. Such a discovery might prompt him to simply walk away from both of them when he was old enough to do so.

The father was, amongst other things, directed to provide for his child by paying the mother £125,000 a year and to arrange the purchase of a property for her and their son to live in at a price of up to £4 million. Urging the former couple to draw a line under the litigation and reach some sort of rapprochement, the Court emphasised that their child’s best hope of a secure future lay in having two loving parents.

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