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A limited company has a legal personality all of its own, but an unincorporated firm does not. As a High Court ruling in respect of a domestic building dispute showed , that distinction can in some cases be a crucial one. A couple who were to move into a...
It is not uncommon for children born with severe abnormalities or injuries to die in childhood. In a recent case, the Court of Protection was required to decide how to divide the estate of a child who died when the lump-sum compensation settlement for...
Industrial processes can be noisy and those responsible for them frequently worry that complaints from neighbouring residents will affect their businesses. However, as a High Court case showed , such concerns and the needs of commerce in general do carry...
If you own or buy a property, you may find that there are covenants which apply to it, a covenant being a requirement to do something or refrain from doing something with your property. A covenant will benefit other property in the vicinity. Typically, a...
Irreverent and foul-mouthed banter is commonplace in some working environments and does not necessarily amount to harassment or victimisation. An Employment Tribunal (ET) made that point in rejecting a compensation claim brought by a salesman who gave as...
It is often optimistically considered that trading on eBay and similar online sales platforms is effectively outside the tax system. That, of course, is not true and anyone undertaking economic transactions for profit needs to comply with the tax laws to...
It is commonplace for people to appoint siblings or friends as their executors. When they do and they are of a similar age, there is a risk that when the person who has made the will dies, the proposed executor will have predeceased them or lack the mental...
The application of the 'sharing principle' to big money divorces is more than a matter of simple mathematics, and what family judges aim to achieve is a broadly fair outcome for both sides. That was certainly so in one case in which the Court of Appeal...
The existence of oral agreements is easily asserted but very hard to prove, and that is one good reason why important deals should be in writing and professionally drafted with the benefit of legal advice. In a case on point, a businessman received nothing...
Many people employ carers or cleaners to assist them with daily living. Quite often, such arrangements are informal and can last many years. However, failing to put them on a proper footing can prove to be an expensive mistake. Where an agency is used and...
With significant losses being reported in 'pension transfer scams', it is no surprise that when the administrators of a pension scheme receive a request to transfer a pension to a new scheme, they are expected to conduct an appropriate due diligence process....
The first Intellectual Property Enterprise Court case heard outside London took place recently , when the court sat in Birmingham at the request of both parties involved in the dispute. It concerned an allegation of improper use of a registered trade mark...
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...
