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The law in the UK is not supportive of people who assist, however unwillingly, those they love who want to die. Although such wishes are often borne out of suffering years of intractable pain or disability, assisting the suicide of another remains a criminal...

Trusts have been gradually falling out of favour, according to a recent report. It is thought that the fall of some 4 per cent in trusts submitting tax returns last year (and 30 per cent since 2003/2004) is due to both a lack of understanding of trusts and...

The quality of British justice is respected around the world – but there are inevitably occasions when judges overstep the mark. In a family case on point, a mother had her two young children taken into care after a judge dismissed out of hand...

According to the Health and Safety Executive, slips and trips are the most common cause of workplace injury. On average, they are the cause of 40 per cent of all reported major injuries at work and can also result in other types of serious accident, such as...

Clients are reminded that, following the introduction of the Stamp Duty Land Tax (Administration) (Amendment) Regulations 2018 , the time limit for the payment of Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) on property transactions has been reduced from 30 days to 14...

The impossibility of asking a deceased person what their real intentions were makes the value of these being clear before death quite obvious, as a recent case shows. It involved an elderly widow who died in 2016. After her death, her family discovered an...

Even if you are partly responsible for a road accident in which you suffer injury, expert legal advice will ensure that you are fairly compensated. In a case on point, a care worker who suffered severe brain damage in a collision won the right to substantial...

Having enough money to pay for care costs in the final years of life is a major concern for many and, despite promises made by governments in the past about limiting the impact on people, in reality the scale of the problem is such that the potential impact...

Employers have a duty under the Work at Height Regulations 2005 to protect employees from falls from height, which are one of the major causes of workplace fatalities and major injuries. Falls from ladders are particularly common, with employers often...

The welfare of children is always top of the list of priorities of the Family Court when making arrangements following the break-up of a family. This can be especially difficult where the parents are from different countries, as shown by a recent case in...

More than 550,000 people die annually in the UK and half of those deaths require the completion of Inheritance Tax (IHT) forms, which are not straightforward and can be a daunting burden at a difficult time for families. However, only 5 per cent of estates...

Retailers are strictly liable if they sell defective goods to customers who suffer injury as a result. In a good example of that principle being applied, two children who suffered life-changing injuries in a house fire sparked by a defective heater are to...

When your spouse's lack of attention to making a will causes issues, faking one is definitely not a good idea, as a Kent woman found out recently. Her husband died in 2013 leaving various properties in Spain and a flat in England, but no will. The woman...

Divorcing couples can sometimes achieve savings of both time and money by opting for arbitration, rather than court proceedings, as a means of resolving any financial disputes. However, as a guideline High Court case underlined , arbitration has its...

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...

Road accident victims often labour under the misapprehension that if they are in any way to blame for their own misfortune they are not entitled to compensation. However, that is not necessarily so, as demonstrated by a case in which a gravely injured...

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...

The widows and children of two expatriate workers who were killed in the crossfire during a terrorist attack on an Algerian gas production facility have successfully negotiated a financial settlement of their claims. The men were amongst many innocent...

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...

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...

Injuries sustained at work can have devastating consequences and victims should not delay in seeking specialist legal advice. In one case, a special needs teacher whose career was cut short after he was kicked in the knee by a pupil won substantial...

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....

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...

Potholes are a plague on road users, and local authorities are under a duty to identify those that pose a danger and fill them in. However, a High Court case concerning an injured cyclist showed that such obligations are not without limit. The cyclist came...

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...

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...

Those who suffer sexual abuse are entitled not only to see perpetrators punished by the criminal law, but also to sue them for damages. In a case on point, a young man whose life was thrown into chaos after he was molested by a senior police officer won...

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...

If you are injured as a result of your employer's failure to match up to health and safety obligations, it is important to seek legal advice to ensure you are properly compensated. The point was proved by one case in which a man who suffered catastrophic...

The supposition that residential properties are exempt from Capital Gains Tax (CGT) is a common, but incorrect, one. You would think, for example, that if a person only owns one property, sleeps there quite often, has post sent there and tells the council...

When parents changed their wills to exclude their son from inheriting their £1 million farm after a family falling-out in 2016, he took the unusual step of challenging their right to do so. Normally, such challenges are made against the estates of...

Home-made contracts, particularly for the sale of land, are a singularly bad idea and can lead to costs that dwarf the modest sums needed to secure proper professional advice. Exactly that happened in one case in which a house purchase contract was so...

Even if you think that a road accident in which you have been injured is partially your own fault, you should not delay in seeking specialist legal advice. The point was made by a case in which a pedestrian who was knocked down and gravely injured after...

When the mother of a teenage daughter who had been taken into care in 2016 with her agreement had another child, the local council's social services department became involved. The woman's daughter had been removed from home as a result of her mother's...

Everyone has a right to complain about their neighbours' behaviour, but where such complaints are unjustified and take the form of harassment the consequences can be severe. In one such case, a flat dweller who made a fellow resident's life a misery was...

A supermarket worker who cut her thumb while working on the fish counter has secured compensation from her employer after her injury led to her developing a serious infection. The woman was gutting and cleaning fish when she cut her thumb on a sharp fin. A...

Recently, Santander was fined more than £30 million for failing to distribute more than £180 million held in deceased customers' accounts to their personal representatives or entitled beneficiaries. More than 40,000 account holders were involved...

When an 18-year-old woman bought a derelict end terrace property in London in 2006 and sold it to developers the following year, she made no entry on her tax return, believing that principal private residence relief applied. Having made a 'discovery' of the...

Many wills contain clauses which alter the distribution of assets in the event of changing circumstances, such as the death of one of the beneficiaries under the will before the person making it. When drafting such clauses, it is essential that they are...

If you have a legitimate legal complaint, any delay in consulting a solicitor is highly likely to benefit the wrongdoer. A man whose home was taken from him by fraud, but who delayed over 20 years before taking legal action, found that out to his cost. The...

A woman who fell and twisted her ankle as she left a car park has succeeded in her claim for compensation. In such cases, it is sometimes difficult to ascertain exactly who owns the premises and who is responsible for maintaining them so they do not pose a...

The law relating to the division of family assets on divorce varies widely across the world and the UK is generally regarded as one of the fairer jurisdictions for such financial arrangements in that the assets tend to be divided more equally than in many...

Consumers have a right to expect that the goods they purchase are of satisfactory quality and do not expose them to risk of injury, as was illustrated by a case in which a homeowner won the right to compensation after a furniture unit came apart and fell on...

Is compensation paid to individuals whose businesses have failed due to mis-selling of financial products subject to Income Tax? In a decision that will disappoint many victims of bank wrongdoing, the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) has answered that question in...

When employees are working 'out of the office', their employer remains responsible for making sure that their working conditions are reasonably safe, and in that context having a safety policy alone is not enough...it must be taken seriously. A recent case...

Inheritance Tax (IHT) is not only payable on the value of the estate of a deceased person, but can also be levied on 'transfers of value' from the deceased's estate in the seven (exceptionally 14) years prior to their death. But what counts as a transfer of...

You might think that where the boundaries of property lie should be clear, but boundary disputes are a fruitful source of argument in the courts. A recent case arose when, between contracts being exchanged on a property and the completion of its purchase, a...

One of the most tragic effects of serious head injuries can be that victims lose the ability to make rational decisions and can be intensely vulnerable to exploitation by others. However, a case in which a crash victim won seven-figure compensation showed...

It is a mark of a civilised society that anyone who suffers a wrong at the hands of state authorities is entitled to compensation. In a case on point, a prisoner whose release was considerably delayed when the Parole Board was stricken by staff shortages ...