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When a couple inherited a house from the deceased parent of one of them, they decided that they did not wish to retain it in the long term and subsequently put it on the market. The week before the property was sold, they sent an election to HM Revenue and...

In 2011, there were nearly three million unmarried cohabiting couples, with or without children, in the United Kingdom. Many of these may not be aware that if their relationship were to end, their legal position would be very different, depending on whether...

Each year approximately 250,000 people are reported missing in the UK and some of these people are never seen again. In England and Wales this can often leave the missing person’s family in a legal limbo, facing several different administrative...

Clauses requiring a party to a contract to use ‘reasonable endeavours’ or ‘best endeavours’ in its performance are common, and while ‘best’ clearly implies something beyond ‘reasonable’, the lack of clarity in...

It is common for rights of way over property to be reserved if the seller retains other land in the vicinity of the sold land to which he wishes to gain access. A recent Court of Appeal case clarifies and restates the principle that such a right of way...

A company director whose company provided services to a charity of which he was a trustee found himself faced with a claim from the charity that he was liable to it when the company failed to fulfil its obligations. The saga started when the trustee made...

A blitz on Capital Gains Tax (CGT) evasion in 2011 has led to a huge increase in the amount of unpaid CGT identified. More than £105 million of unpaid CGT was uncovered – an increase of more than £30 million (43 per cent) on 2010. Much of...

A recent decision of the General Court of the European Union (GCEU) has seemingly altered the previously understood position as regards the use of similar trade marks. The case involved an attempt to block the registration of a trade mark (in the form of a...

When a mother recently sought to stop her estranged ex-partner (who had been granted parental responsibility over their children) from seeing their two daughters because she found it ‘too upsetting’, the Court of Appeal was unsympathetic . The...

Yet another case involving a dispute over a verbal agreement was decided recently. It involved a company that was the owner of three properties, which it intended to sell at auction. It had made an agreement with a man that he would buy the properties at...