It is always best to ensure you have a carefully drafted, and updated Will setting out what you would like to happen to your property and effects when you die. The law protects your decisions in most cases but this can provide some inflexibility in the way your estate is handled. Equally, if there is no Will, the intestacy rules can result in undesirable consequences.

With less than a week to go until the next Budget, on 3rd March 2021, speculation is rife as to what Chancellor Rishi Sunak may announce. With the pandemic affecting the country for more than a year, there are likely to be numerous Covid-related support measures announced.

Patient Safety Minister Nadine Dorries has issued a call for hospitals to use gold-standard test for mothers at risk of giving babies Group B Strep, after the large-scale National Institute for Health Research-funded clinical trial on testing for GBS had received ethical approval in 2019 with an estimated 80 hopsitals required to take part ensuring the rial screening could reach 320,00 women, only 15 hospitals have been able to commit.

Following our recent insight on the Inheritance Act and Minor Children, this insight moves onto another category of claimant under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (“Inheritance Act”) - adult children.

A recent article has reported that there has been a marked rise in claims being brought against estates. These claims are mainly being made under the provisions of the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 whereby claimants argue that they have not received reasonable financial provision from an estate. 

Coupled with operations restrictions, the stamp duty holiday has slowed almost every part of the conveyancing process. Surveyors, mortgage lenders, search agencies and conveyancing lawyers are struggling to meet demand which means that the average property transaction completion time has increased from 12 weeks to 16 weeks. As a result, current new buyers are unlikely to meet the March 31st deadline to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday.

Many employers will not have prioritised training over the last few months, but a decision from the Employment Appeal Tribunal highlights the risks of falling behind.

As the vaccination effort gathers pace, many employers are considering the knotty question of whether they can require unwilling employees to be vaccinated (or refuse to recruit the unvaccinated). This isn’t a simple issue.

There are many different types of claimants under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (IPFADA).

There is no specific legal definition of a ‘zero hours contract’ but it is generally understood to mean an arrangement under which the worker has no set minimum hours and is only paid for hours actually worked. Typically the worker does not have to accept any work offered to him or her, but must carry out the work personally if they do.

With the UK Government’s current Covid-19 vaccination programme now well underway, the question of consent and whether or not to administer the vaccine to vulnerable loved ones is a particularly topical issue.

Tozers’ charities team has been fortunate to have co-hosted or attended several roundtable discussions among charity trustees and senior managers in recent weeks, where they have shared their experiences of what has been a hugely challenging last 12 months for the charity sector.