The tax credit system continues to be a major source of confusion in the UK, and as Shehab Khan reported in the Independent earlier today, hundreds of thousands of people have been unsuccessfully calling HMRC for information. The phone system is apparently overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people seeking assistance with understanding their tax credit problems. It is a concern because when people make mistakes with regard to their tax credit claims they are usually on the receiving end of some very harsh accusations, and can even find they are harassed and intimidated into serious confessions that they may…
When a husband and wife split up, they amicably decided that maintenance would be paid by the husband to the wife for five years and agreed between themselves the main details of their other financial arrangements, leaving only some aspects to go before the court. However, when the financial settlement order was handed down by the court, it allowed only that the payments would ‘cease on the first of the following events: (i) the death of either party, (ii) the remarriage of the applicant wife and (iii) further order of the court’. The judge involved had simply failed to take…
Giving false evidence to any court can have serious consequences, as an errant ex-husband may be about to discover. Ex-spouses are often reluctant to pay settlements awarded to their former partner and, in one extreme case, a husband who claimed to have paid £40,000 to his wife in bundles of £50 notes was condemned as a ‘disgraceful liar’ by a family judge. Following divorce proceedings, the husband had been ordered to pay his wife a lump sum of £80,000. He claimed that she had agreed to accept only half of what he owed her so that her receipt of benefits would not…
Across the length and breadth of the UK, the government has been rolling out a series of price hikes on basic services that have already begun to have impact on citizens. Court fees have not escaped notice, and are set to rise by a significant amount, though the actual amounts will vary depending on the type of matter being contested. While the increases are steep, they still have fallen well short of the government’s originally intended increase of 80%, which would have seen the fee for a divorce rise to £750 before any other costs such as solicitors fees and…
This Solicitors Journal article is well worth a read for those whose marriage arrangements include a prenuptial agreement. Since the landmark Radmacher case there have been other court cases which have clarified how Radmacher is applied in practice. Luckwell v Limata In this case there was a prenuptial agreement where the parties had three children and the effect of the prenuptial agreement would leave the husband in a ‘predicament of real need’. The wife had an allowance of £81,000 p.a. and £7m of assets in her own name. The husband was on the minimum wage, and had no property. A…
Earlier this month the BBC reported that the Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Rev David Walker, had made a radical suggestion that the government ought to let benefit cheats get away with fraud. It would appear that the BBC in this case is scandalising what was actually a quite benign statement, which was: “We have to let a few manipulative people get away with it if we’re not going to have too many innocent people punished”, which as you can see is a very long jump from saying that all benefit cheats should be let off, as the headline implies.…
Hylton-Potts has many years of experience in helping foreign doctors (and other professionals) to obtain the right to live and work in the UK. This includes helping to obtain all the proper registrations and going through all the bureaucratic procedures to ensure that everything is processed quickly, completely, and efficiently. Many professionals are confused by the complexity of the rules and, of course, there have been several changes to rules and conditions over the years, so it can happen that you might read something online that seems very discouraging to your chances, or conversely you may read something that gives…
This article is going to deal with two very important sides to the issue of inheritance. In the first part, we will take a look at why you need to take legal steps to ensure your will can stand up to any contest, provided that it is fair in the first place. Then we’ll take a look at what you should do if you believe that you haven’t been fairly treated by somebody else’s will. Contested Wills becoming a more common occurrence In the past, especially since these matters usually involved retaining solicitors with high fees, wills were only contested…
The original idea of conservative government was actually that this form of government is supposed to be anchored to a central pillar of cautious spending and attempting to preserve a high standard of living for all. Along the way, however, the Tory party has been straying farther and farther from this path, until it has in effect assumed the persona of a “Sheriff of Nottingham” type of figure, taking from the poor to line the pockets of the rich. This has not only been becoming more notable, but more blatant. They are not even trying very hard to hide this…
Would you ever have thought it was possible to go to prison for smiling too much? Well, if the claims made by “Camilla” on the disability blog known as Ron’s Rants are actually true, then it would appear to be quite possible. In the comment post, Camilla alleges that benefit fraud investigators are conducting a conspiracy against her, fabricating eye-witness testimony that contains numerous factual errors. But what really stands out among the other claims is that the investigators claimed to have seen her smiling. The obvious inference is that if you can smile, you’re obviously not suffering enough to…
