31. A freehold flat is virtually unmortgagable and therefore unsaleable. It is however possible to mortgage (and sell) a freehold flats in Scarborough, Glasgow and Edinburgh. It’s all to do with a freehold not benefiting from (amongst other things) the right of support. You may ask therefore, “why Scarborough, Glasgow and Edinburgh”.

Quite simply because some lenders will take a commercial view on properties in those areas. With regards to Scarborough for example the list of lenders that will lend on a freehold flat in Scarborough comes down to a short list of one. For the rest of the country, freehold flats are simply unmortgageable and therefore unsaleable.

32. If you sign a document agreeing to some terms and conditions without understanding or reading that document then you are bound by those terms and conditions even though you didn’t understand them or read.

33. A sign which says “trespasses will be prosecuted” is nonsense. A prosecution is a criminal matter whereas trespass is a civil matter. You can not prosecute trespasses. You may be able to sue them for damages but you can not prosecute them.

34. There is nothing in law which says that on the road you have to drive on the left. If you decide to drive on the right however (apart from probably causing an accident) you are likely to be charged with careless, reckless, dangerous, or such like driving. There is also driving without due care and attention which is somewhat milder.

35. It is not an offence to use your mobile telephone to call the emergency services, while you are driving. Not recommended but not illegal.

36. Driving a car on tyres with a tread depth below the legal minimum of 1.6mm is an endorsable offence for which you will get three points minimum. You will also get a fine.

37. A bailiff has no right to enter into your house unless you invite them in. Once you have invited the bailiff in they can then remove goods if they have an order. You can however withdraw the consent and ask them to leave. If they don’t leave, you are entitled to call the police. They do not have the right to break in from the outside, they can only enter peaceably. Once inside, they can break internal doors to get access to goods. The moral therefore is to quite simply never let a bailiff over your doorstep.

38. If you are passing an open window and you put your hand through the window and steel a cake (or anything else for that matter) you have committed burglary. You don’t have to enter the building to commit burglary.

39. Sending abusive or explicit/obscene text messages by mobile phone is an offence under the Wireless Telegraphy Act.

40. Parking fines levied in private car parks are unenforceable in law in 99.9% of circumstances. This means that if you stay in the local supermarket longer than the allotted two hours (or whatever the period is) and you get a penalty ticket, although it may threaten to take you to court if you don’t cough up, if they did take you to court they would lose.

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51.       Regardless of whether you are a trustee, a beneficiary, executor or related in some other way, if you arrange a funeral for somebody who has died, then you are responsible for paying the costs. These can sometimes be claimed back from the estate.

52.       If you let the deceased person’s bank have the funeral bill, and provided there is enough money left in the deceased person’s bank account, then the bank will generally pay the funeral account without any fuss and without waiting for grant of probate.

53.       If somebody you know has died any nobody is willing to arrange the funeral then rather than you do it and be stuck with the bill if there is not enough to pay for it then you should first contact the local authority (before arranging it yourself) and get the local authority to arrange it. In that case, the local authority (only if there is no money or assets) will pay for it.

54.       If fatherhood of a child is in dispute and either the father or mother refuses a DNA test then the presumption is that the test would be in favour of the person who is asking it and not in favour of the person who is denying it. There is sound logic behind this in that if the person who refuses to test has nothing to hide then they should allow it because DNA tests, although personal are not invasive or intimidating.

55.       English law is the most widely quoted case law in the world. English case law is often quoted in not only English speaking countries but also other languages. It is possible to have a contract in (say) Australia which is governed by English law and for the English courts to have jurisdiction.

56.       Australian, al lot of African, Canadian, Bermuda, and various other countries laws mimic those of England & Wales.

57.       You do not have to “help police with their enquires”.

58.       A person still commits rape even if the other party consents to having sex if, the consenting person mistakenly believes that the other person was someone else. (that may seem a bit bizarre but there is actually a case where the couple had sex in the dark and the girl thought that the rapist was her boyfriend and when she put the light on it turned out to be somebody else.)

59.       If you are in business partnership with someone, then the partnership is governed by the provision of the 1895 Partnership Act still. The act says that if a partner dies or retires or leaves and the partnership is dissolved the surviving partner doesn’t automatically take over.

The Partnership Act 1895 says that profits are split equally.

21. If you are a UK resident and you also have property in France or Spain then you should also have French or Spanish (or any other country for that matter) will to deal with those countries assets. Other countries inheritance laws often completely different from those of United Kingdom.

22. If you tear up a will by accident, and not intending to, that doesn’t revoke a will.

23. If your partner, in the middle of a heated argument tears your will, that doesn’t revoke it either.

24. If you leave someone your house in a will then they inherit the house that you live in at the date that you wrote the will. The same goes for any other assets. It is the assets that you own at the date that you wrote the will. So, if you leave “my house and car” it is the house and car that you own at the date you wrote the will. If you subsequently sell the house and move into another one or you sell the car and buy another one then the person you thought was going to get the house and the car wont. It should say “the house and car I own at the date of my death”.

25. If you put words in the will to the effect of “the will being un-contestable” they are of no effect. There is no such thing as an un-contestable will.

26. If you die without making a will then your assets go to survivors of your estate under the rules of intestacy. They don’t necessarily go all to your spouse. Hence it is so important to write a will.

27. If you leave something in your will to (for example) your son and your son predeceases you then the asset left to your son does not automatically go to his children (if he has any) unless the will specifically says so.

28. A will must have two witnesses who should sign their name, print their name and add their address and occupation. Both witnesses must be present when the testator (the person writing the will) or testatrix (if female) signs the will.

29. Any agreement to transfer a property must be in writing to be enforceable.

30. In addition to the agreement to transfer the property being in writing the actual document doing the transfer from one person to another must be a deed.

11. Beneficiaries of a will can be executors/trustees but can not be witnesses. Nor can spouses of witnesses (it’s debateable whether a non civil partner is included in this definition but legally not) can not be witnesses either.

12. Certain transactions (for example land) have to be done by deed. To make a document a deed it must say “this is a deed” or such like. The deed must be “signed, witnessed and delivered”. Actually it is sufficient for it to be intended to be delivered even if it never was. Prior to 1989 it had to be “signed sealed delivered” (as in the Stevie Wonder song…I’m yours). The rules changed in 1989.

13. A will has been written to probate on the shell of an egg and on the side of a toilet. Not recommended but it can be done.

14. A soldier’s will (about to go into action) does not need to be witnessed and can be written in pencil.

15. The shortest provisions in any will are “all to wife”. The will must still revoke earlier wills, appoint executors, be dated and be signed and witnessed.

16. If you leave somebody an asset (as apposed to the use of an asset) you can not dictate what happens to it after your death. For example you can not say that “my son can have my house but if he gets married he has got to sell it and have the money instead”. This amounts to an “instruction from the grave” and is not allowed.

17. You can not give an asset away but retain an interest in it to avoid inheritance tax. Either you give the asset away or you don’t. If you transfer your house to your children but continue to live in it rent free then the revenue are likely to view this as “a gift with reservation” and treat it as though you still owned it for inheritance tax purposes. There is no way of giving assets away but retaining control of them. And, yes, if you give all your assets away to your children they can spend them, sell them, or do whatever they like with them. That’s what giving them away means.

18. If you make a nut and bolt costing 10p and you know that it is going to be used in an airplane and the airplane falls out of the sky because the bolt broke, then the measure of damages can be totally disproportionate to the value of the faulty item provided that it was “within the contemplation of the parties” what it would be used for.

19. If you’re getting divorced then English courts no longer apportion blame. It doesn’t matter that you actually catch your partner in a compromising situation it will not affect the financial outcome of any divorce settlement. The only time that a court will apportion blame in divorce is if conduct of one party has affected children.

20. Once a will has been admitted to probate it becomes it becomes a public document. Anybody can obtain a copy from the Probate Registry for a fee of £5 providing they know the place and date of birth. For that reason it is probably a good idea, if you’re excluding somebody from your will not to mention why. That would usually be dealt with by a separate “letter of wishes”.

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1. If your terms and conditions are printed on the back of an invoice they don’t apply to the contract unless the parties have dealt with each other before over a “regular course of dealings”.

2. Speeding is what is known as “an offence of strict liability”. This means that if you travel at 31 mph in a 30 area you commit an offence. It means that there is no defence to it. It doesn’t matter that your partner is on the back seat of the car about to have a baby, you have got diarrhoea, your car is on fire and you’re trying to get it off the motorway. You still are committing an offence. You may have what is known as “mitigation” or “mitigating circumstances” but you do not have an offence. There is no defence for speeding. Mitigating circumstances simply mean that you have a reasonable excuse.

3. The definition of theft is “appropriation of property: belonging to another: with the intent to permanently deprive:”. Unless all elements are present then it is not theft. So, if someone you don’t even know borrows your lawnmower and leaves a note which says, “I have borrowed your lawnmower to mow my lawn and I will bring it back tomorrow”, that person hasn’t actually done anything wrong! Ironic but true. He doesn’t intend to permanently deprive you of the lawnmower because he says he is bringing it back. No offence. No point calling the police.

4. If you walk through the middle of a farmer’s field then that’s trespass. However the remedy for trespass is damages (compensation). However to get compensation you have to have suffered loss. So, if all you have done is simply walked across the grass there is nothing that Mr Farmer can do. If you damage crops then that is another matter and you are liable to be prosecuted for criminal damage. Criminal damage is another subject altogether.

5. If a parking or speeding ticket has an obviously wrong date on or has the colour of your car wrong or has the registration number written incorrectly don’t think that you can necessarily get off on a technicality. If the registration number on the certificate is down as ABC123 and it should be ACB123 then Magistrates are likely to allow this under what is known as “slip rule” which allows minor errors in paperwork to be admitted. You can try it, but it won’t work.

6. If you buy a house with someone on a joint mortgage and they go bankrupt then you remain liable for the whole mortgage. In addition, their half of the house (if it’s worth anything) then belongs to the trustee in bankruptcy. Ironically enough the trustee in bankruptcy doesn’t have to contribute to the mortgage but can take any proceeds such as rent. Think carefully before you buy a house with anybody else if they are not of excellent financial standing.

7. If you rent a house you are usually required to pay a deposit. Since the 1st April 2009 the landlord must put this in a Tenants Deposit Scheme. If the Landlord doesn’t then the legislation provides for a Tenant whose landlord hasn’t put a deposit into such a scheme to get three times the amount of the deposit as compensation. This does not mean that if the Landlord hasn’t put your £500 deposit into a scheme you get £1500 back. It means that if you have suffered any loss as a result of the Landlords failure to put the money in a scheme then he is liable to pay you compensation in respect of his failure. Please note that in English Law, to get compensation, you have to have suffered loss so that means that if you were to get £1500 compensation (for your £500 deposit) you have to have suffered £1500 worth of loss. English Law does not punish it compensates.

8. Technically, there is no such thing as an accident. Have you noticed that road traffic accidents are no longer called road traffic accidents but are called RTC’s (road traffic collisions)? This is because nothing ever happens accidentally. If there has been a collision between two vehicles for example it has been caused by the negligence by either one party or the other. Sometimes they are equally to blame but, none the less, they have both been negligent.

9. There is no such thing as a joint will. There is what is known as a “mirror will” where by two parties leave all their worldly wealth’s to each other in the same terms.

10. If you write a will leaving everything to your spouse and then get divorced that money/those assets, which you left to your spouse will pass into the residue of the estate. Similarly, if you write a will leaving everything to the cat’s home and then get married, the will is void in its entirety.

If you have finally decided that you can’t work it out and you are getting divorced then you

may find the following useful. Hopefully, not only will it be useful, it will also save you some money your divorce. Hopefully it will also remove a little bit of the mystery surrounding some of the phrases such as “ancillary relief”.

The following is not meant to be the definitive guide to divorce. There are plenty of books been written on the subject (many of them read by lawyers at a very expensive hourly rate!) and a visit to the local bookshop or internet will come up with volumes and volumes.

Of course, having read this, got divorced and read a few books on the subject you may decide to become a divorce solicitor. Others have done it.

I digress.

Divorce can be broken down into its component parts:

1.         Dissolution of the marriage

2.         Ancillary matter

“Ancillary matters” simply refers to money and children.

“Ancillary relief” is not something you take for an ancillary headache but legalise for maintenance.

Taking each in turn.

Dissolution. The divorce itself.

 

The most common reasons for divorce are:

Living apart for two years (by consent) or five years (with no consent)

Adultery (fairly obvious)

Unreasonable behaviour

I am not going to get into getting the marriage annulled here (usually for illegality, none consummation, none consent or some other reason) because that is a story for another day.

Adultery

Remember this isn’t a definitive guide this is merely pointers. If you’re “soon to be” ex has committed adultery with (she) every member of the eighth army or (he) all 47 Dagenham Girl Pipers, they have admitted adultery. Don’t waste time and money gathering evidence. One count is enough. Also, don’t worry about who it was with because you can put person, time and date unknown. I will also mention at this stage that adultery is probably the simplest, easiest and least unpleasant (surprising that they may seem) way of getting divorced because the petition goes into a few lines and doesn’t have a whole page of unreasonable behaviour where one party is slagging off the other. It is also worth noting that if you are getting divorced on the grounds of adultery you don’t need to gather ten pages of information on how unreasonable they have been. All doing that achieves is increasing your legal bill and really wicks off your ex. Don’t do it.

Unreasonable behaviour

You need about four grounds for unreasonable behaviour. The juicier the better and perhaps come up with a “brief” (and I emphasize on “brief”) list of unreasonable behaviour and let your solicitor decide which one to use. I say make it a brief list because if it is a long list your solicitor is going to charge you £175 per hour to read it! (More on solicitors costs later). As with adultery, it doesn’t matter how many counts of unreasonable behaviour you have, try and get away with as few as possible (it will reduce your legal bill!).

Living apart

If you and your spouse have lived apart for two years and both want a divorce, hey presto, the jobs done. You have all you need.

If your spouse doesn’t consent to a divorce and you have lived apart for five years then you are entitled to a divorce. There is also a slightly different ground “desertion”. This really amounts to the same thing as living apart for five years and to all intents and purposes is the same. From what I gather the main difference between living apart for five years and desertion after five years is that living apart after five years you know where your spouse is and with desertion you don’t. The practicalities in both cases are exactly the same because you will have to swear an affidavit to say what you have done to get your partner to either sign documents or to find your partner.

So there you have it. Everything you need to know about dissolving your marriage in one easy lesson.

The next paragraph will help remove some of the stress (I hope) and keep the bill down.

Legal costs

The majority of legal costs are incurred by clients. Yes, that might surprise you but clients incur their own legal costs. Why? Simply because they write to their solicitor, they ring their solicitor, they get letters from their solicitor in response to things they have asked. All that costs money. First thing I will say therefore is “speak” when you’re spoken to. Don’t write or telephone unnecessarily. I know it’s difficult when you feel your solicitor is not corresponding with you but I will tell you how to deal with that later. Let me just tell you at this point that the majority of times that a solicitor doesn’t correspond with the client is because they have got nothing to correspond about. An obstructive spouse can soon slow the process down to a snails pace. Remember that if your solicitors doesn’t get you divorced then your solicitor doesn’t get paid. The solicitor therefore wants your divorce to move as quickly as it can. Please bear that in mind.

Try to avoid telephones. Telephone calls can run away with time and £175 per hour that soon happens. Commit everything to writing and keep the writing brief and to the point. Do the following when writing to your solicitor:

Make sure that the letter is really well spaced. It is much quicker to read a well spaced paragraph than a huge paragraph containing loads of points. I always do this when I go to court. I make sure that each document has only one sentence per paragraph! Don’t worry about the grammatical layout of the letter, you’re not in an English lesson in school. You are simply making it easy to read. So, one sentence per paragraph and even better if you number each paragraph. That way, when you happen to be speaking to your solicitor you can say paragraph x of my letter of the y date.

Don’t argue over trivial things. If you spend two hours arguing, solicitor to solicitor over a CD collection that solicitors argument (two hours each side times £175 per hour) will cost you, between you, £750. You can buy quite a few CD’s for £75. Don’t get dragged into arguments over trivia.

Agree solicitor’s costs with outset. A solicitor has to give you their standard terms of business which will include details of the hourly rate, complaints procedure and everything else you need to know. Unfortunately, it usually runs into about 18 pages of small print. It is all relevant. Read it end to end and digest. The most important parts are:

a) the hourly charging rate

b) what the exact job they are doing for you is

c) the complaints procedure

Agree at outset not the hourly rate but get an estimate of costs for doing the whole job. As for this to have disbursements listed as a completely separate thing. Disbursements are other costs, not solicitor’s costs, but things such as court fee’s etc. There is nothing worse than being told that something will cost you £1000 only to find out that on top of that there is a £600 court fee. Ask, and get it in writing.

Make sure that you set a limit (and get the solicitor to confirm it in writing) of costs which will not be exceeded without your authority.

I can not emphasise the importance of agreeing costs and costs limits at outset. If your solicitor for some reason doesn’t confirm what is agreed between you, you write it down and send it to your solicitor as conformation of what you have agreed. Make sure that you keep a copy of all correspondence and do make sure that all correspondence is dated. You wouldn’t believe how many people send letters in with no date.

Partly under the heading of what could be correspondence but also most relevant costs I must mention email. Email is great. The same rules with regards to writing letters apply but two of the advantages of email has are time (all you have got to do is press a button and it arrives at the other end) and convenience. Those two advantages are its downfall. It’s so easy to simply fire an email off to your solicitor. Remember that an email is treated like a letter and you will be charged £15 for receiving it. You also get charged £15 replying to it so, think carefully.

Let me tell you know that your divorce is not going to cost you hundreds of pounds. It is going to cost you thousands of pounds. A do it yourself divorce with no arguments over money or children can be done for you for a few hundred pounds. If you get appendicitis, you can probably take your own appendix out but we wouldn’t suggest it. My suggestion is to set up a standing order to pay your solicitor (say) £200 per month because then, after twelve months you have paid £2500 (which will be plus VAT) without it hurting quite so much.

Time scale

You can get divorced in six weeks. It is likely to take six months or at least longer. You can often, delays are caused by the spouse’s solicitor trying to extract information from his client. It’s like pulling teeth. Sometimes a simple exchange of correspondence can take 6 weeks. So, the majority of delays (this will surprise you) are usually caused by a spouse. Once again, agree a time scale with your solicitor for dealing with correspondence.

A local authority can levy distress upon a ratepayers’ goods.  It will need to obtain a liability order from the Magistrates Court first.  That order acts as a distress warrant without the need to return to the Magistrates Court.

It is always useful to negotiate with the local authority to see if agreement cannot be reached.  Only if it fails or an agreement is reached which is broken will goods be levied.

The bailiff can levy goods at any time although and from any location.  A bailiff can be refused entry but it is not practicable to refuse entry to such a person in the commercial sector where the retailer cannot ascertain the identity of those that enter his premises.

The bailiff can seize any goods that belong either jointly or wholly to the debtor.  In a business setting goods will often belong to third parties.  If a bailiff does seize goods belonging to another then the debtor must immediately bring this to the attention of the bailiff.  Initially the burden of proof is with the debtor but the bailiff will be under an obligation to act with caution thereafter.

Once the goods have been seized the bailiff will seek to impound them.  That can be done by immediately removing goods or placing them into a walking possession agreement.  The latter will mean that the goods remain with the debtor and can be used by him but disposing of them would be unlawful.

Sooner or later, you are going to die. That is a fact!

Many people in Britain do not have a Will. Why is that? Quite simply, it is due to the fact that few of us like to think about our own mortality. We are going to die,…eventually. Some of us sooner than later. As a result, when we die, our wishes may not be carried out. This can cause untold distress and upset for your family at a time when they are already grieving the loss of a loved one. All this could easily have been avoided by writing your will

If you were to die without having left a Will, your Estate is administered in accordance with the current Rules of Intestacy.  The rules apply a rigid formula and govern how your Estate will be divided amongst your family.  This can even result in your spouse not being entitled to all the assets in your estate.

If you die without a Will or you have not left specific instructions in it regarding gifts to specific family members or friends, but your spouse can show that he or she is entitled to all the assets in your Estate, then those assets of particular sentimental value to you may not go to who you wanted.  This is of particular importance if you are in a second marriage or relationship and where one or both of you have children from your first marriages or relationships. We all want to make sure proper provisions are in place for our children.

Important Points To Consider When Writing A Will