News
- Can a Will Be Valid if You Can't Read it? One of the requirements for a will to be accepted as valid is that the person who makes it must have 'knowledge and approval' of its contents...in other words, they must understand what the will says and what it means in practice. It might seem, therefore,...
- Get an Agreement - Especially Where Family Members Are Involved! It is normal for money, often considerable sums, to pass between family members. However, when this is done without legal advice, it is only too common for disputes to arise as to whether or not the sums concerned were meant as gifts. Disputes between family...
- Inconsistent Residential Planning Permission Overturned If you are faced with an unwelcome proposal for development nearby, a recent case shows how tenaciousness and a knowledge of past planning history can help to prevent it. Consistency of decision making is a fundamental principle of planning law and local...
- Wife Seeking Divorce Fails to Prove English Domicile London has gained a reputation as 'the divorce capital of the world' because settlements reached are, by international standards, very generous towards women. It is no surprise, therefore, that the courts in this country are a very popular choice of venue...
- Planning Application Restricted to Preserve View On our densely populated island, there is a pressing need for available land to be put to sensible use and, where restrictive covenants lurking in title deeds prevent that happening, they can be modified. In a case on point, a man's desire to provide a...
- Unmarried Partners and Widowed Parent's Allowance - Supreme Court Rules A decision of the Supreme Court announced today has important implications for unmarried partners of people who have died. The case involved a woman from Northern Ireland who was denied Widowed Parent's Allowance (WPA) after her partner of 23 years passed...
- Financial Claim Based on Support After Divorce Fails The usual course of events on divorce is that there is a financial settlement which divides up the family assets as they are at that point in time. This takes into account the expected future income and need for income of the couple who have split up, based...
- Farmer Acts to Protect Family Promise Farming families appear regularly in the courts these days, as more and more cases arise that feature undocumented promises that have been made (or are alleged to have been made) by parents but not kept. The law will only enforce such informal arrangements...
- Tenants Must Bear Cost of Safety Improvements Following the Grenfell disaster in 2017, cladding has come under close scrutiny with surveys being carried out as a priority in buildings across the UK. The failure to comply with Building Regulations (Part L1A 2010), which provides a framework for ensuring...
- Possible Separation From Mother Intolerable, Rules Court Relationships that start on the Internet are already leading to some interesting situations. A recent family case involved a British woman who had met a Pakistani man online and married him in the USA, where the couple had two children. Her husband had...