The creation of a power of attorney is a good way of making sure that your affairs are dealt with by a responsible person if you are unable to manage them yourself. However, when the choice of attorney is a poor one, many...
Getting divorced is never a pleasant experience and couples going through the process have a lot to think about. Whilst management of the tax consequences of the split is not normally at the top of their priority list, these...
It is a regrettable truth that even close family members cannot always be trusted to do the right thing, as illustrated by a case dealing with a wayward son who was appointed as attorney over his elderly mother's financial...
When a person relies on a promise made by another person to their detriment, the law provides a mechanism by which the promise made can, when the circumstances permit, be legally enforceable. Such cases are particularly...
Yet another attempt by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to persuade the court that a gift of a property from parent to child should be a 'gift with reservation of benefit' has failed. Where any asset is gifted from a person...
When a man's wife died, his decision to execute a new will less than a month later led to a legal challenge. Two earlier wills had made his wife his principal beneficiary and provided that, should she predecease him, his...
When a woman transferred the lease on her Knightsbridge flat into a trust for the benefit of her two sons, the intention was to provide a benefit to them which would, over time, be free of Inheritance Tax (IHT). Such gifts...
As the law currently stands, employers and pension funds are permitted to exclude civil partners from spousal benefits under a pension scheme the rights to which accrued prior to 5 December 2005, which is when Section 1 of...
When a family business is handed down and ownership is split between two or more members of the next generation, the result can all too often be discord. Normally, this can be resolved by one party buying out the other, but...
The judge came down hard on a Singapore-based businessman who first told his ex-wife that she was entitled to more than €2 million from the sale of company shares, before seeking to reduce that figure a few months later to...