The Employment Tribunal (ET) has now delivered its judgment in the long-running case of Homer v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police , which dealt with a claim of indirect age discrimination brought under the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 ...
When a landlord granted a lease over a maisonette to a tenant then subsequently alleged that the lease was drafted incorrectly, it took the intervention of the court to decide who was to pay how much for repairs to the property. The landlord claimed that...
Two company directors who lied to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) when under investigation for possible tax offences have been jailed for tax evasion and fraud. The pair ran a successful IT firm. When they were investigated, they were, as is usual, required...
In these straitened times, it is regrettably not uncommon for a buyer to withdraw from the purchase of a property after a legal agreement to purchase has been completed. When this happens, the vendor may be entitled to claim damages. In a recent case , a...
The Court of Appeal has ruled ( Charles v Tesco Stores Ltd. ) that the Employment Tribunal (ET) erred when it struck out an employee’s race discrimination claim on the ground that it had been lodged too late. In ruling that the claim was out of time,...
When a tenant’s lease has a break clause, normally all rent due must be paid in full before the break clause can be activated – even if the rent paid runs beyond the break date. If a tenant decides to pay only the rent ‘due’ until...
The dangers of giving a power of attorney to the wrong person have yet again come into focus following the conviction of a Birmingham estate agent who had stolen more than £250,000 from an elderly couple. The couple, a woman aged 93 and her...
The shock result of a recent tax case will send reverberations around the furnished holiday letting (FHL) industry, after the court reset the bar regarding the level of service provision that has to accompany a letting for it to qualify for beneficial...
When land is owned in trust for the benefit of more than one person, the question of what should be done with it can be the source of dispute. Often, the best solution is to partition the land between the beneficiaries, so that each can do what they wish...
West Midlands logistics company Nightfreight (GB) Limited has been fined £300,000 for breaches of health and safety law after one of its drivers was killed by a runaway lorry at its depot in Earls Barton, Northamptonshire. Russell Homer, 44, had just...
A legal battle which led to a six-day trial resulted in the Court of Appeal declaring that a will was invalid , even though it had been drafted by an experienced solicitor. The case concerned a will that was written in 2007, the practical effect of which...
When a road or pathway is regularly used by people and the owner takes no active steps to prevent this or assert control over the land concerned, an ‘easement by prescription’ can be created under which the right of access becomes lawful and the...
The French Government passed measures last year which have increased the taxes payable by non-resident owners of properties in France and further rises are planned. Since 1 January 2012, the rate of tax for rental income arising on French property is 35.5...
The Agency Workers Regulations 2010 (AWR), which implement the EU Agency Workers Directive, came into force on 1 October 2011. Under Regulation 5 of the AWR, agency workers have the right to the same basic terms and conditions of employment as if they had...
A couple who defaulted on their £500,000 mortgage have failed to convince the High Court that the loan is unenforceable by reason of the lender’s failure to comply with the safeguards contained within the Consumer Credit Act 1974 . The Court...
Insolvent tenants can be a major headache for landlords. For example, when a corporate tenant goes into administration, the landlord needs to obtain the consent of the administrator, or of the court, to forfeit the lease. This is because administration is...
With one in six British marriages now involving a spouse not domiciled in the UK, problems involving the tax consequences of domicile are becoming increasingly common. Most of the press coverage involving domicile and tax has involved Income Tax. However,...
The Court of Appeal has overturned the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) and ruled that a lap dancer at a London club owned by Peter Stringfellow was not an employee ( Stringfellows Restaurants Ltd. v Quashie ) and was not therefore entitled...
When an elderly and ill woman was put under continual pressure by her brother-in-law to change her will in favour of his children, whom she rarely saw, her resolve finally cracked and in a bid to have a quiet life, she instructed her lawyers to draw up a new...
In the context of a dispute between parties to a building demolition contract, the High Court has ruled that an adjudicator was not entitled to change his mind after reaching a final decision and that, subject to further litigation or arbitration, the...
When a planning appeal to which the National Trust was a party came before the court and the judge due to hear it was a member of the Trust, he was automatically disqualified from hearing the appeal. The planning application was to build four wind...
The Court of Appeal has ruled that the established regime whereby applicants for jobs requiring contact with children or vulnerable adults have their entire criminal records disclosed to prospective employers is unlawful and an infringement of the...
For a will to be valid, one of the conditions imposed by the Wills Act 1837 is that two witnesses must attest the will by signing and acknowledging the signature of the person making it (the ‘testator’) and must do so ‘in each...
The Government has accepted the recommendations of the independent Low Pay Commission (LPC) for this year’s adult and youth National Minimum Wage (NMW) rates. However, the LPC’s recommendation that the apprentice rate, which applies to...
Following recent changes to the length of consultation required when making collective redundancies, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Services (Acas) has published a guide for employers entitled ‘How to manage collective redundancies’...
