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A pre-nuptial agreement (PNA) will be taken into account when a couple divorces, as long as it has been freely entered into and it is fair to hold the parties to it. Recently, the Family Court was called upon to decide how the terms of a PNA affected the...
When prospective tenants are asked to pay a holding deposit, they should ensure that they disclose any information that might affect a landlord's decision whether to offer them a tenancy. Recently, the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) dealt with an application for...
Unmarried couples who hope to have children together via fertility treatment must comply with a number of requirements in order for both partners to be legally recognised as parents, but if a mistake is made in the documentation, the courts can often assist....
Can a local housing authority serve an improvement notice under Section 12 of the Housing Act 2004 in respect of a hazard that may or may not exist? This question was raised in a landlord's recent appeal to the Upper Tribunal (UT). The landlord had been...
The High Court has ruled that a businessman's final will, which left most of his estate to his two youngest children and largely disinherited his two eldest children, was invalid. The businessman had been diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2010. Before making...
In cases of serious injury or disability, judges may be called upon to make difficult decisions about whether it is in the patient's best interests to continue life-sustaining treatment. A tragic High Court case concerning a severely disabled four-year-old...
When couples divorce, the courts will take pre-marital agreements (PMAs) into account but will also consider the needs of each spouse. This principle was demonstrated recently in financial remedy proceedings before the Family Court. The couple had signed...
A woman and her ex-husband who allegedly lost substantial funds belonging to the woman's mother have been ordered by a judge to pay back the missing money. After the mother died in 2019, at the age of 86, the woman's sister brought proceedings in an effort...
Tenants who feel that they are being overcharged for services in connection with their properties are able to challenge the reasonableness of their charges. The First-tier Tribunal (FTT) recently reduced the amount a tenant was required to pay for insurance...
When incurring costs in respect of a property, landlords should consider at an early stage whether these will be recoverable through the tenants' service charges. A right to manage (RTM) company recently failed to persuade the Upper Tribunal (UT) that legal...