EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT FURLOUGH

AND THE CORONAVIRUS JOB RETENTION SCHEME

All UK employers, including law firms, should familiarise themselves with key aspects of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, a temporary scheme running for at least 3 months from 1 March 2020, designed to support employers whose operations have been severely affected by coronavirus.   The 1 Essex Court employment team are currently providing advice and assistance to employers across a broad range of businesses o...

Working and Parenting From Home - some common employment law questions answered

Can the Landlord be too early?

 
1. I recently represented the landlord in a protracted tenancy dispute in the County Court.  After three hearings, a single issue remained to be decided: whether the landlord had satisfied the requirement of s.213(6) of the Housing Act 2004, in circumstances where the tenant contended that the prescribed information had been provided too early. 

The statutory framework 

2. Sections 213 and 214 of the Housing Act 2004 (as amended by the Localism Act 2011) pro...

A revival of the rule in Pigot’s Case? 

1. In Grove Park Properties Ltd v The Royal Bank of Scotland [2018] EWHC 3521 (Comm), the Claimant borrower sought to rely on the rule in Pigot's Case (1614) 11 Co. Rep 27 that a material alteration in a deed will render it void, and on what was said about this by Lord Kenyon CJ in Master v Miller (1791) 4 TR 320 at 329 when the principle was extended to “all written instruments”. 
 
2. As Chitty on Contacts 33rd edn., 2018, para.25-020 puts it: “If a pro...

I will speak briefly about:

The court’s power to rectify a will set out in section 20 Administration of Justice Act 1982

The approach of the court

Clerical error

Failure to understand instructions

Ascertaining the intentions of the testator

The court’s power to rectify a will set out in section 20 Administration of Justice Act 1982

Section 20 of the Administration of Justice Act 1982 enables the court to order a will to be rectified so as to remedy a failure to carry out the testator’s intentions in c...

Every once in a while, a case comes along in which the judiciary goes beyond just giving its opinion, it decides to also make a point.

Enter the Supreme Court in R (on the application of UNISON) v Lord Chancellor, a case concerning the lawfulness of the introduction of fees to issue a claim in the Employment Tribunal.

Those of us lawyers in the employment game have found it difficult to be objective about the introduction of these fees for the simple reason that their impact was to effectiv...

This post briefly discusses three questions:

1.   What is the legal basis for claiming equitable compensation for breach of fiduciary duty?

2.   Is a tenant in common (‘A’) potentially liable to a personal representative (‘B’) of a deceased co-owner (‘C’), to pay equitable compensation for loss of development value (‘DV’), on the grounds of breach of fiduciary duty, where A has applied for a sale of land under s.14 of the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 (TLATA) as a...

Introduction

‘FAs 2015 and 2016 have introduced a residence nil-rate band which enormously complicates the drafting of wills…’ ‘Drafting Trusts And Will Trusts – A Modern Approach’, by James Kessler QC & Charlotte Ford (13th Edition) (December 2016) (‘Kessler’).

‘Although the intention is to ensure that the house can be passed on death with the benefit of the additional nil rate band, this is not how the rules work. The extra nil rate band is set off against the chargeable estate and so reduces t...

1.RESTRICTIVE COVENANTS - THE LEGAL STARTING POINT

Restrictive covenants are a form of Restraint of Trade, and the default position of the courts in respect of such restraints are that they are unenforceable. 

Nordenfelt v Maxim Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Co Ltd 1894 AC 535:

“All interference with individual liberty of action in trading, and all restraints of trade of themselves, if there is nothing more, are contrary to public policy, and therefore void. That is the general rule”

As the starti...

“Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.” (Cervantes).

In the recent case of TBO Investments Limited v Mohun-Smith [2016] EWCA Civ 403 the Court of Appeal handed down some helpful guidance on the application of the ubiquitous test of promptness. The decision is also important for its accompanying examination of the ‘good reason’ for not attending trial requirement contained in CPR r. 39.3(5)(b) and that element of it will be examined in a subsequent articl...