Taking legal advice when making your will is more than likely to reap dividends after you are gone. In one case, a solicitor’s wholly reliable evidence proved decisive in resolving an extraordinarily bitter family inheritance dispute. By his final will, a man left his residuary estate to the sister of a woman with whom he […]
With many more people running businesses from home in a post-COVID-19 world, the spotlight has inevitably fallen on commonplace restrictions on the use to which domestic premises can lawfully be put. In a case on point, a couple required a tribunal’s authorisation to open a home-based childminding business. The title deeds to the couple’s home […]
In a head-turning decision, the High Court has acknowledged that increased rainfall arising from environmental changes was one cause of excess seepage of water from a landowner’s field into a neighbouring domestic garden. The garden owner sought an injunction and damages against the landowner, alleging that the increased seepage arose from the landowner’s negligence and […]
Shareholders are obviously liable to pay Income Tax on their dividends, but what if a declared dividend is not – and, in reality, never will be – paid? A tax tribunal pondered that issue in a case concerning an otherwise successful property management company that was saddled with crushing debt servicing costs. The company was […]
When spouses each make valuable contributions to a long marriage, the general rule is that marital assets should be divided equally in the event of divorce. As an unusual High Court ruling concerning the validity of a French marriage contract showed, however, the sharing principle can be displaced by agreement. The case concerned a couple […]
When making a will, it is vital to remember your obligations to family members and others who depend upon you financially. As a High Court ruling showed, however, your duty is to make reasonable provision for them – no more. The case concerned a matriarch who died just short of her 100th birthday. By her […]
The fathers of those who are given up for adoption as babies are often not identified on their birth certificates and that can be a painful barrier to their formation of cultural and family identities in later life. As a High Court ruling showed, however, there is a great deal that the law can do […]
Large houses set amidst rolling acres are an abiding feature of English rural life – but should such properties necessarily be viewed as wholly residential? In answering that question in a landowner’s favour, the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) relieved him of a substantial Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) demand. The landowner and his wife purchased a […]
Those who delay making a will until they are at death’s door create a very real risk of conflict amongst their loved ones after they are gone. That was sadly so in the case of an elderly man who was in hospital, suffering from advanced bladder cancer, when he finally got round to instructing a […]
There can be few things more wounding or worrying than to be on the receiving end of a poison-pen letter campaign. However, as a High Court ruling showed, the law provides an effective means by which victims of such behaviour can achieve both public vindication and appropriate compensation. In the background to the case was […]
