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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
It is legally possible for couples to make mutual wills by which each binds the other not to alter their bequests at any point in the future, save by mutual agreement. As a High Court ruling showed, however, the inherent inflexibility of such arrangements is one good reason why lawyers usually advise against them. A […]
One of the social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic was the creation of a fashion for householders to operate businesses from outhouses in their gardens. However, an important tribunal ruling underlined the legal hazards of such a course. In response to the pandemic, a couple began running a beauty therapy business in a wooden cabin […]
Only those with the mental capacity to make important decisions for themselves can consent to marriage – or divorce. However, as a High Court ruling made plain, it is in no one’s best interests for the law to maintain a marriage that has become no more than an empty husk. The case involved a couple […]
Tensions simmer within many families and, when making your will, you may wish to keep its contents secret from your loved ones so as to avoid feeding the fire. As a High Court case showed, however, that makes it all the more vital to engage a solicitor to assist you in expressing your wishes. By […]
In cases where even a succession of stiff prison sentences has failed to bring about compliance with court orders, what is a judge to do? A family judge faced exactly that quandary in the case of a father who defiantly refused to cooperate in arranging the return of his two daughters from Libya to England. […]
