Whether you are planning to refurbish and sell a house or to construct a whole new apartment block, almost all your plans will be governed by planning laws and any local restrictions. Planning restrictions are more stringent in conservation areas, for...
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Website operators are reminded that the grace period for achieving compliance with the requirements of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations 2011 has now expired. From 26 May 2012, the requirement is not just to...
A recent case dealt with the vexed question of how similar one’s advertising can be to the trade marks of another company before this constitutes an infringement of its intellectual property rights. When supermarket giant ASDA sought to break into...
Statistics show that 33 per cent of marriages that took place in 1995 had ended in divorce 15 years later. This compares with 22 per cent of marriages that took place in 1970. The workload of the Family Courts has consequently risen over this period, leading...
When a transaction occurred that should have aroused suspicion, the subsequent investigation by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) led to fines for three of the people involved. The transaction involved the sale of a 13.3 per cent holding in pub chain...
Agricultural Property Relief (APR) is a relief that applies for Inheritance Tax (IHT) purposes. It is similar to Business Property Relief (BPR). Both operate to reduce the value of the property for the purposes of computing the taxable estate of a person...
In a recent case, Plymouth Hospital NHS Trust was ordered to pay compensation to a patient after one of its employees unlawfully gained access to the man’s medical records. The nurse who accessed the data was the man’s partner at the time. The...
When a severely depressed woman attended hospital as a voluntary patient but then discharged herself and subsequently committed suicide, did the hospital breach her human rights by permitting her to leave? The Supreme Court has unanimously held that in...
Having too much, too soon has been the cause of the ruin of many a life. Worried that this might be the fate awaiting her child, a mother recently went to court to delay the entitlement of her three-year-old son to an estate of nearly £750,000, which...
When a developer sought to make use of a 37-year-old planning permission because it had ‘commenced building work’ within five years of the permission being granted, the Court of Appeal was unimpressed . In 1974, the developer had obtained...
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