Bill Wood QC, who is the acting Chair of the Civil Mediation Council, said in an interview on 23rd May, that ‘mediation is helping to save businesses, citizens and the Government from some of the huge expense and uncertainty involved in court cases. ‘Recent governments have given considerable support to the increased use of mediation in the civil justice system. UK mediators are in demand around the world both as …Read More
Thousands ‘ripped off’ by unregulated Will writers.
Thousands of people are being ripped off by companies providing unregulated services such as will writing, claims the first Legal Ombudsman.. In his first report, Chief Ombudsman for England and Wales Adam Sampson said the most complaints he saw concerned Conveyancing, Family Law and Wills. He called for action to be taken to ensure consumers were not left vulnerable by unregulated services. Only a tiny fraction of legal services must …Read More
Businesses can challenge land use restrictions that benefit supermarkets
From 1 July, businesses may apply to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to challenge land use restrictions that limit competition against major supermarkets. A Competition Commission investigation into the grocery market found that certain restrictive covenants and exclusivity arrangements could prevent local grocers from competing against large supermarkets. The investigation led to the Groceries Market Investigation (Controlled Land) Order, which allows these restrictions to be challenged. The order obliges …Read More
Flexible working in courts faces criticism
While pilot schemes have been operating throughout England, the Crown Prosecution Service has announced that courts will have to be more ‘flexible’ during the Olympics. Other ideas in a government white paper include magistrates handling cases on their own where there is a guilty plea, more use of video links when hearing evidence, and judges operating out of community centres or police stations if necessary. A spokesperson for the Crime …Read More
Equine Law: Changes to Vetting Rules
Changes to Pre-Purchase Vetting Rules have been introduced by the BEVA in an attempt to protect purchasers, by standardising the way in which Pre-Purchase Vettings are carried out. From September, vets will have to declare previous knowledge of every horse they examine and whether the seller is a client of their practice. They will have to state on the certificate what additional procedures they carried out during the examination and, …Read More
Solicitors warned of divorce claims
Divorce LifeLine suggests that since pension sharing was introduced in December 2000, around 750,000 people, in half the divorces across the country, could be entitled to claim thousands of pounds from their solicitors where their former spouse’s pension was undervalued. The company’s founding partner Tony Derbyshire said that in 96% of the 171 divorce settlements it had looked at, solicitors had not sought expert advice on the pension value. ‘It …Read More
A study to look at how people access legal services has been announced
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has been looking at how the public accesses legal services in North Wales last month to gauge the opinions of local people on the legal services market. This was the first of a number of SRA consumer visits taking place across England and Wales in 2012 as part of the SRA’s new consumer research project. The research will look at the different problems consumers might …Read More
Children’s guide to family justice published
The government is currently in the process of reviewing the Family Justice System as a whole. As part of that, children are being asked to provide their input in explaining how they consider that they should be treated on Divorce as part of the justice system. The comments made by Children will be fed back to the Government who intend to incorporate procedures within the Family Justice System to take …Read More
Squatting has become a criminal offence in England and Wales.
It follows on from a public consultation last year on options for dealing with squatting and better protecting homeowners. The new offence will be punishable by a maximum prison term of up to six months, a maximum £5000 fine or both. Previously, the only option was to seek a civil court order to regain possession of the property, which could be time consuming, expensive and stressful. Justice Minister Crispin Blunt …Read More
Employees to be automatically enrolled into company pension schemes from this autumn
A scheme to enrol millions of people into workplace pensions automatically was launched on Monday. Up to 10 million are expected to be enrolled eventually in what is hailed as the biggest pensions revolution since David Lloyd George ushered in state pensions a century ago. A handful of the largest employers, with 120,000 or more workers, must place eligible workers into schemes. Firms will join the scheme in a staging …Read More