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July 10, 2013
10 Jul 2013

Tenant Eviction – A Minefield

On a daily basis, I am approached by landlords to advise them of their options as they seek to regain possession of their property from tenants. The instructions I receive often follow unsuccessful attempts that they have made to regain possession.

The most common cause for uncertainty in this area of law relates to the specific notice periods that landlords must give tenants before they are legally entitled to reclaim possession of their property. In essence, this area of law is a minefield and legal advice should be sought by landlords at the earliest opportunity.

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July 5, 2013
05 Jul 2013

Mis-sold mortgage case: Court of Appeal finds in Claimant’s favour

If you aren’t a financial expert, you probably rely on financial advisors to guide you on making the right financial decisions. You’d hope the advice is the best available but if they are guilty of financial services negligence, who pays and how much?

A recent case in the Court of Appeal last week illustrates the difficulties faced when claiming after financial advisers give bad advice. In Emptage v FSCS, Mrs Emptage owned a property with a relatively modest repayment mortgage of just under £40,000. She sought advice from a mortgage broker on reducing her borrowing. His rather novel advice was to re-mortgage with an interest only mortgage for roughly £112,000. The cunning plan was to invest the balance in a Spanish property, with the aim of making a capital gain to pay off the mortgage on the original property and have a nice surplus.

Needless to say, the Spanish property market collapsed and Mrs Emptage did not have the means to repay the new increased mortgage.

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June 28, 2013
28 Jun 2013

Inheritance act claims - The Cruise family case

There are many reasons why someone might contest a Will, but wills disputes are seldom easy to win. I’ve just had one of those rare occurrences, a relatively easy victory.

The court will generally recognise that people have the right to decide who to leave their estate to; so in general they are free to leave their belongings to whoever they choose. However, under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 the law provides that if you were:

  • A spouse or civil partner of the Deceased
  • A former spouse or civil partner of the Deceased and have not re-married or formed a subsequent civil partnership
  • Were a child of the Deceased, or were treated as a child of the Deceased
  • Immediately before the death of the Deceased were being maintained by the Deceased

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June 24, 2013
24 Jun 2013

Building Disputes - Get it down in writing!

It has been reported this week that homeowners have been told by Consumer Minister Jo Swinson to record builders with a mobile phone so they can claim for compensation if a building dispute later arises. The minister seems to have thrown the iPhone advice in as part of ‘off the cuff’ remarks to try to illustrate the benefits of the proposed new consumer rights bill.

Unfortunately, none of what she said about recording conversations changes the law at all and may in fact be unhelpful, especially if it means people reject written contracts in favour of oral contracts.
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June 17, 2013
17 Jun 2013

Bank Harassment - Leave me alone!

We’ve all had experience of someone being rather too keen to get in touch with us. How many times do we check our mobile phone to see multiple missed calls from a number we don’t recognise? Or from someone we’re just not that eager to speak to?

Mobile phone networks can be particularly guilty of this kind of thing; I was once called by my network provider over 30 times over the course of a 4 day holiday. Luckily the phone had been left behind at home or my break might have been a little less enjoyable.

As we all know banks are rather keen on money, keeping hold of it any way they can. A case where they overstepped the mark surfaced yesterday: In Roberts v Bank of Scotland plc, the claimant was a customer with Bank of Scotland but had exceeded her overdraft on one account and her credit limit on another. So far nothing too unusual - the bank called their customer but she told the them she did not wish them to call her again. Reading between the lines you may be under the impression that the bank did not meekly agree to this request, and you would be right.

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June 13, 2013
13 Jun 2013

Payment protection insurance claims – Don’t bank on it

Think banks have reformed and are putting their houses in order? It raised eyebrows when it was reported this week that Lloyds Banking Group and Deloitte, the financial service firm that operated their call centre, had failed customers by wrongly rejecting their claims for compensation relating to payment protection insurance claims – a scandal upon scandal.

An undercover reporter from the Times said he “was told to ignore possible fraud by Lloyds salesmen and that most complainants would give up if rejected the first time”.

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June 6, 2013
06 Jun 2013

Property solicitor negligence - but where’s the loss?

I had a call the other day from a businessman who wanted to know whether he had a claim for professional negligence against his previous solicitors. He had instructed them to act for him on the purchase of a property. He wasn’t sure about tax so he asked his solicitors whether he would be able to reclaim VAT on the property. The solicitors, after asking the other side, said yes, but did not make their own investigations.

He went on to buy the property for say, £400,000 and sometime later he proceeded to reclaim £80,000 VAT. However, he was later disappointed to receive a letter from HMRC telling him he had incorrectly claimed the VAT back and would have to repay the money to HMRC, so he got in touch to get advice on making a claim for property solicitor negligence for their incorrect advice. He felt they were at fault and had mistakenly told him VAT was recoverable. They had relied on what the other side had told them but should have sure for themselves rather than just rely on the sellers, resulting in wrong information being given.

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May 30, 2013
30 May 2013

Fair’s fair

If you’re a fair-minded, decent soul you may prefer to look away now! It never ceases to amaze me quite the lengths some people will go to in order to get a share of someone’s estate. One will dispute case I am currently handling involves Jane. That’s not her real name of course, nor is anyone’s name real in this otherwise true story.

Jane phoned me for advice a couple of months ago. She explained that she was feeling hurt and cheated by some distant relatives who had wheedled their way into being named beneficiaries to an estate. The story concerns her aunt Marilyn and her cousin Ted. Her aunt Marilyn had one child, Ted, who happened to be about the same age as Jane. Jane had been treated by Aunt Marilyn as if she was her daughter, taking her on holidays with her and Ted. Jane and Marilyn’s family remained extremely close until Marilyn’s death. Jane and Ted were almost like brother and sister.

Ted suffered with minor learning difficulties and Jane was always there to care for him, especially as Marilyn got older.

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May 24, 2013
24 May 2013

Adding insult to injury

I’m working on a number of cases involving personal injury solicitor negligence. Mostly, they have failed to either settle a case or issue the claim at court before the strict 3 year time limit, under the Limitation Act 1980.

It’s no wonder solicitors endure sleepless nights if they don’t keep a diary to remember these important deadlines! When solicitors miss a deadline, clients lose the opportunity to seek compensation from the wrong-doer, whether a careless driver in a road accident or an employer who has caused a work accident for example.

If you’re unable to pursue a personal injury claim due to solicitor’s negligence, all may not be lost since you may be able to sue your solicitor and have a second chance to be compensated.

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May 22, 2013
22 May 2013

Surveyor Negligence - Finding an expert

“Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing.” Take a bow, Konrad Lorenz!

I spent far too long yesterday looking for an expert to help me with a case. On the way home on the train, I spotted Lorenz’ words in the newspaper. How fitting.

Rebecca had been looking for a house in the Cambridge area and had set her heart on a quaint three-bed cottage. Naturally, she employed a surveyor to inspect the property before buying it. The agreement between Rebecca and the surveyor was for him to report on the state of the property, detailing any defects, structural issues and an estimated cost of repairing any defects. Rebecca wanted peace of mind in buying an old property and if there were significant problems with her dream home she envisaged using the report to renegotiate the price or pull out. When she received the report, Rebecca was delighted to find there were no major concerns. Based on this report, she went ahead and brought the property.

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