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Legal News and Free information

When did you last update your Will?

Brian Haite
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If you haven't made or updated your Will there are some recent important inheritance tax changes which have affected most Will-makers and their beneficiaries. Making a good Will and keeping it up to date is the last best thing you can do for your intended beneficiaries. Why leave the State to decide who will benefit from your life-savings?  Make a Will and you keep control of the process. A good Will can save tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds of tax and gives you the certainty of knowing your estate will be dealt with in accordance with your wishes.

Making a Will can also help to ring-fence some or all of your expectant estate from claims for Nursing Home fees and the like

See further details of the latest taxation changes and top reasons for reviewing your Will in our Wills Trust and Probate section under the "Areas of Law" link.

 

Are you vulnerable to fraud at the Land Registry?

Nick Fluck
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Government figures have recently been released showing tens of millions of pounds worth of property fraud has taken place since the Land Registry introduced open public access and disposed of the requirements for a physical title document. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Registry may in certain circumstances seek to avoid its liability under the Government's guarantee of registered titles and seek instead to foist the blame upon individual owners or their solicitors.

What can you do to make sure you are not at risk?

Register to read more...
 

Lincolnshire Local Justice Areas - New Ministry of Justice Proposals

Nick Fluck
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The Ministry of Justice is running a consultation on its proposals to reduce the nine current Lincolnshire Local Justice Areas to just three. The current nine areas served are Lincoln, Gainsborough, Sleaford, Grantham, Bourne and Stamford, Elloes (Spalding) Boston, Skegness and Wolds.  If the current consultation is put into effect there will be: 

One Bench in the North of the County to serve the Courts formerly run by the Lincoln, Gainsborough and Sleaford Local Justice Areas. The new Bench would sit at Lincoln and would be known as the West Lincolnshire LJA.

One Bench in the South of the County to serve the Courts formerly run by the Grantham, Bourne and Stamford and Elloes (Spalding) Local Justice Areas. The new Bench would sit at Grantham and Spalding and would be known as South Lincolnshire LJA.

One Bench in the East of the County to serve the Courts formerly run by the Boston, Skegness and the Wolds Local Justice Areas. The new Bench would sit at Boston and Skegness and would be known as East Lincolnshire LJA.

Whilst the statistics published in the formal report show the selected centres as being the areas of principal demand this is not the whole picture. In reality the Ministry has been moving cases to Courts other than those formerly serving local communities for some time.  This new consultation is to make the administrative centres match the preferred Court centres.  

On the data provided the change in administrative structure seems logical.  What is unfortunate is that this is the tidying-up exercise after the real mischief has already taken place. The local courts for Bourne Stamford Sleaford and Gainsborough are being quietly phased out.

Lincolnshire is the second largest County in England - the rural population is very poorly served by public transport.  Is it really right to remove local courts, adding the anxiety of long distance travel to what may already be fraught proceedings?

Take part in our Poll or make your own response to the Ministry consultation which can be found linked from our Web Links page.

 

Irish Abolish the "Upwards Only" Rent Review

Nick Fluck
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The Irish Government has taken a significant step and has passed into law (becoming effective in February next year) a legal provision which prohibits, or more accurately re-interprets, upwards only rent reviews.  The provision is contained in section 132 of the Eire Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009.  It remains to be seen whether the UK Government will follow suit.  Political tinkering with the legal system is always suspect and one usually needs to look at the government's agenda rather closely.  It is hard to see how this can be justified on "public interest" grounds when the Landlords affected will clearly be disadvantaged by the change.  In England & Wales the Code for Commercial Leases continues to advocate more flexibililty in the commercial letting market but, thus far, stops short of compulsion.

 

Access to Justice - Is the High Street Law Firm doomed?

Nick Fluck
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The last few weeks have seen some notable broadsheet journalists reporting on the likely impacts of the establishment and costs of new regulatory structures for High Street Law firms, especially those with only one or two partners which have traditionally supplied the bulk of local generalist legal advice.

Apparently it is likely that these local firms may find it hard to survive in the new marketplace envisaged by the Legal Services Board, which prefers new model larger and "more efficient" regional firms where much of the work is done by cheaper to hire unqualified staff.  It is certainly a fact that small local firms pay the most for their indemnity insurance and thus are already bearing a higher costs overhead than larger law-factory firms which, not being structured around face to face contact with clients, can afford to cherry-pick legal areas with high value returns and target remote clients in which to specialise whilst servicing those clients with fewer and fewer qualified staff.

Will the LSB hold true to its remit for supporting and promoting access to justice at all levels and if so when can we expect to see support measures for local law firms with qualified solicitor staff to assist them in maintaining truly local access to justice?

Stapleton & Son are pleased to confirm we are still alive and well* - providing quality legal advice from well-qualified staff at affordable prices.

*so far - fingers crossed! 

 
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