Private Client Articles

The Ministry of Justice has announced that the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020, which will allow married couples to be granted a divorce without assigning blame, will have a commencement date of 6 April 2022. This is the result of decades of...

A father has failed in his attempt to be awarded full custody of his son in a case made complicated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The father was a US citizen; the boy's mother was British. The couple began a relationship in 2014 when the mother was working...

Two teenage brothers have been granted a share of their father’s estate even though they were estranged from him and had been excluded from his will. The two boys, referred to only as J and H in court, who were aged 16 and 15 respectively at the date...

The government is planning to give leaseholders more control over their homes by developing a new collective ownership system known as commonhold. The commonhold model is used widely around the world and provides a structure for homeowners to collectively...

A husband has failed in his attempt to use the impact of the Covid pandemic as a reason to have his divorce settlement set aside. The husband and his wife had reached a settlement on 12 March 2020, shortly before the UK 's first national lockdown. He...

The High Court has provided some useful guidelines on what is required for a person’s statements to be legally classed as ‘deathbed gifts’ in inheritance cases. The court was asked to determine the proper distribution of the estate of a...

The Court of Appeal has reiterated that domestic abuse could mean far more than just violence and included behaviour that could affect the welfare of children even if they were not the direct victims. The issue arose in four conjoined appeals involving...

Getting divorced at any stage of life is always a challenging time. Emotions are understandably high, and the process can feel complex and alien. For older couples who may have been married for many decades, these issues can feel magnified even...

A woman who was adopted at the age of six has won the right to exclude her birth family from care proceedings concerning her daughter. The case involved a mother aged 19. Her relationship with her adoptive parents had been successful at first but began to...

A manager was unfairly dismissed after she was told she couldn’t work remotely at her son’s hospital bedside. The case involved Lorraine Hodgson, who was office manager of Martin Design Associates. Hodgson’s son was in hospital with...