Legal Updates

The experience of seeing one’s parents split up, however amicably, can be difficult for a child to cope with.  But divorces are not always amicable.  The fact is that many split-ups are bitter and frequently involve protracted legal battles, including child custody cases.  In the bitter battle between warring parents, children often end up becoming the prisoners of war.  Parents often use children as weapons in their personal fights with each other, and according to legal experts specialising in family and divorce law, this behaviour is escalating. 

If you have studied ILSPA’s Legal Secretaries Diploma course, you will already know that a leasehold estate is one of the two ways under the Law of Property Act 1925 that you can own land in the UK.  Leasehold is a form of ownership that allows you a temporary right to hold land or property.  The length of this temporary right is often measured in decades, usually 99 or 125 years. What you have not bought when you obtain a leasehold title is the land a property stands on.  The land is owned by a freeholder or landlord, who will charge a ground rent.

The President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger, recently expressed grave concerns about the imminent cuts in legal aid for civil cases.  These cuts are expected to save over £350 million after they come into effect this month.  But the statement by Lord Neuberger was closely followed by yet another announcement by Justice Secretary Chris Grayling, detailing further cuts in legal aid spending, this time for criminal cases. 

ILSPA’s Legal Secretaries Diploma unit relating to Wills, Administration and Procedure sets out why it is important to make a will, and the assessments for the course require Students to type a will.

It is possible to make a will without professional assistance; in fact, it is possible to pick up a draft will with basic instructions on how to complete the same from a high street stationery retailer.  Whilst this can produce a valid will, it is also very easy to make a mistake when writing the will or signing it, which can render it invalid or ambiguous. 

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides that anyone under the age of 18 is a child. It further provides that in regard to the age of criminal responsibility, countries should “consider whether a child can live up to the moral and psychological components of criminal responsibility.” In the UK, the minimum age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales was raised from 8 to 10 years old in 1963 and the legislation included a rebuttable presumption that a child aged between 10 and 14 years was incapable of committing an offence (doctrine of doli incapax). However, this presumption was abolished by s. 34 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, leaving the age of responsibility in England and Wales being the lowest in the EU.

The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill 2012-13 was introduced in the House of Commons in January 2013. The Bill is intended to make provision for the marriage of same sex couples in England and Wales as well as provisions about gender change by married persons and civil partners. If passed, it would allow same-sex couples to get married in both civil and religious ceremonies, where a religious institution has formally consented. The Church of England will be banned from offering same-sex marriages because of their strongly stated opinion. The Bill has led to much debate but was approved by the House of Commons on second reading on 5 February 2013 by a 225 vote margin.

Spring will soon be upon us, and we can therefore reflect on how the winter has affected legal services to clients. Winter is the most common time for personal injury accidents to happen due to slipping on ice and snow. The first question on most people’s minds would be “Whom can I sue?” Whilst a civil litigation personal injury claim may be considered, one must not forget that there are also other aspects of private law which could be considered, including Occupier’s Liability.

While not the most glamorous of subjects in Conveyancing terms, who owns the sewers to a property is very important. Few people will have realised that just over a year ago the ownership of more than 200,000km of private sewers and drains transferred from property owners to six water companies. 

This mass transfer of ownership is actually a good thing for property owners, as in the future it may save owners from having to pay costly repair bills if things go wrong. The reason for the change was to make ownership of the sewer network clear and help improve long-term maintenance.

When studying Land Law, few students expect to come across what ordinary people might regard as legalised theft. The part of the law I am referring to is known as adverse possession, which can allow a squatter to obtain rights over land – commonly referred to as ‘squatter’s rights’. This concept may seem controversial, but it is based on the notion that unused land does not benefit society as a whole. In other words, on some occasions it is better for everyone that a limited resource like land should be used by someone rather than by no one. 

The basic rules for someone to gain adverse possession are that they must prove the following:

On 21 January 2013, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) published its ‘Review of Government action on United Nations’ recommendations for strengthening children’s rights in the UK’. The report criticises the Government for failing to implement the changes recommended in a 2008 report by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child – changes which, in 2010, the Government had committed to take into consideration when enacting law and policy.