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For anyone who aspires to a life ‘messing about on the water’ and getting tax relief on the required expenditure, a recent tax case may prove something of a dampener. The case involved a British author who was intending to write a book about...

Figures obtained by independent IT finance provider Syscap indicate that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) are increasingly using their powers of distraint to seize the assets of businesses with unpaid VAT bills. Last year, HMRC used these powers 2,401 times,...

A pregnant woman who was injured when the horse she was riding veered through a hedge and threw her onto the road has lost her claim for damages for her injuries . The woman was an experienced rider, but was riding the horse using a bitless bridle. This...

Making a bequest to a charity is relatively common. However, sometimes this can backfire spectacularly, as happened in the case of a Cheshire man who bequeathed a property to the RSPCA in his will and included the wish that it should be preserved as a...

Cybercrime is estimated to cost nearly $400 billion annually. The European Commission has announced plans to set up a dedicated centre to fight cybercrime, with responsibilities for: warning EU countries of major threats to their IT infrastructure; ...

In 2009, the Government and the Association of British Insurers entered into an agreement, the Statement of Principles on the Provision of Flood Insurance, which committed home insurance providers to making flood insurance as widely available as possible....

When a developer obtained planning permission to demolish the existing house on a site overlooking the sea and to build three new detached houses, he had to apply for a variation to a 1955 restrictive covenant over the land which prohibited the erection of...

When a local authority could see that an elderly woman had been browbeaten into going into a care home against her will, it considered that she had not given a valid consent and challenged the move. The woman’s son had lived with her and exercised a...

When an elderly woman decided to make a new will giving her entire estate to her neighbour, the attendance note prepared by the firm she had initially approached to do the work formed a large part of the evidence when her will was subsequently challenged by...

When a landowner erected a fence and a wall that impinged on a right of way and made it impossible for a farmer to get his hay baler into a field, trouble was inevitable. After the wall and fence were put in place, the width of the access to the field was...