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Divorce settlements are designed to provide certainty and finality so that people can get on with the rest of their lives. However, an important Court of Appeal decision has underlined that they can be modified after the event if circumstances demand. A...

Planning laws are about the character and appearance of the built environment but can also be instruments of social policy. In one case which proves that point , a local authority deployed its planning powers to stop a local hotel opening its doors to a...

It seems only right that people can do what they want with their own money and can make whatever bequests they wish in their wills. In one case which underlined that fundamental freedom, a judge upheld a businessman's right to cut his daughter out of his...

In English law, the normal rule in a contested case is that the loser pays the winner's costs. Where an offer to settle a case is made, the rule is modified. If the case then goes to court, in simple terms the loser still pays if the court makes an award...

It is often thought that if a planning decision with which you are unhappy goes ahead and the development takes place, you must simply grin and bear it. This is not always the case. For example, if public construction works have an impact on the value of...

The lengths to which people go to avoid paying taxes are sometimes surprising, and the schemes that are created to facilitate tax avoidance come under close scrutiny from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). So it was that a tax avoidance scheme based on a Jersey...

Many businesses supply cars to their employees for business use. The regime under which benefits in kind are taxed is well known by most company accountants. However, one such must have been surprised when HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) sought to levy a...

The respective rights of children and their parents has long been a tricky subject for the courts. A recent case on this topic involved a couple's adopted 16-year-old child, who was born female but wished to change gender and attended the Tavistock Gender...

When a sports website was found to be providing unauthorised video clips of international cricket matches, the England and Wales Cricket Board and Sky UK Limited – to whom certain broadcast rights had been exclusively licensed – took a dim view...

In a decision that clarifies a problem area of the law and will be required reading for commercial property professionals, the High Court has ruled that it is not legally possible for a tenant to validly assign a lease to a guarantor of that lease. The...