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The High Court has allowed a family to correct an error in a trust fund that would have had costly tax implications. The case arose out of financial arrangements outlined in the will of a man who died in 2015. He bequeathed £4.2m to be held on trust for the benefit of his widow and
The government is considering a stamp duty surcharge for non-UK resident homebuyers to reduce house price inflation and provide funds to help the homeless. The Treasury is conducting a study to consider how a new 1% increase to stamp duty costs for non-UK residents buying residential property in England and Northern Ireland would work. This
The Family Court has ruled that a 10-year-old boy who was abducted by his father and taken to England should be returned to his mother in Portugal. The mother and father, who also had a daughter aged 16, had separated in 2009 and subsequently divorced. In 2014, the father relocated to England but travelled to
A campaign for the government’s Prompt Payment Code to be compulsory rather than voluntary as it is now has been gaining cross party support from MPs. The idea was put forward by the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT), which believes that the current voluntary system isn’t delivering for small businesses. The association has made three
Two builders have been ordered to pay compensation to a married couple despite claiming they were not responsible as individuals for problems with work they carried out. The couple had entered into a contract with builders advertising as HavenBuild, which was a trading name and not a limited company. The contract was for work on
More than 50 councils across England are to share nearly £2.4m of extra funding to crack down on rogue landlords. The government says that while most landlords provide decent homes for their tenants, the cash boost will enable local councils to step up action against the small minority who continue to flout the law and
A financial broker has succeeded in preventing a commercial lender from approaching its clients. The case involved Medenta Finance Ltd, which specialised in financial products in the medical and dental market. It had acted exclusively for Hitachi Capital UK Ltd. Under a 2011 agreement, Hitachi provided finance for the sale of products through suppliers introduced
A postman has lost his race discrimination claim against Royal Mail. In dismissing his case, the Court of Appeal outlined the twin test that must be passed to win such a claim. The court heard that the postman had graduate and post-graduate qualifications in forensic computing and had applied unsuccessfully for over 30 internal posts
New regulations contained in the EU Trade Mark Directive 2015 came into force on 14 January. The government says the changes are widely supported by users of the UK trade mark system and will be maintained regardless of the outcome of the negotiations surrounding our exit from the European Union. The changes are designed to
A new one-stop government service allowing start-up businesses to register their company and register for tax at the same time has been used by more than 200,000 new businesses. The Streamlined Company Registration Service, which has been set up in a collaboration between HMRC and Companies House, is designed to ease the burden on new