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The number of tenants buying their council homes under the Government discount scheme, Right to Buy, has more than doubled over the last year. Right to Buy offers eligible tenants discounts of up to £100,000 in London and up to £75,000 in other areas. The latest figures show that the number of homes sold between
A father has won an appeal against a court order that rejected the recommendations of childcare experts and reduced his contact with his children. The local authority and child welfare officers recommended that the father should be allowed contact once every three weeks. This should begin immediately with his two younger children and then three
A bus driver has been awarded nearly £60,000 compensation after an employment tribunal found that he was unlawfully dismissed when he developed diabetes. David Hoggett had worked at Abellio London Ltd for eight years. In April 2012, he was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes and took several months off work as he responded to his
The money that goes to the Treasury from people who don’t make a will has nearly doubled in the space of just a year. The Times newspaper has published research carried out by lawyers which shows that £38.5m flowed into the Treasury coffers last year from the estates of people who died without a will
There has been a large increase in the number of children abducted by their parents and taken to or from the UK following the breakdown of relationships. Figures released in the annual report by the Office for International Family Justice for England and Wales show that there were only three such cases in 2007. The
A neighbour dispute over relatively trivial matters has led to financial disaster for one side and divorce for the other. The judge described it as a “sad and regrettable dispute” and urged the warring parties to make peace. The case involved a teacher and a photographer who made a series of complaints about each other’s
The Government has made significant concessions on its ‘shares for employment rights’ scheme in order to get it through the House of Lords. The scheme, in which employees give up some employment rights in return for shares in the company they work for, has met with strong opposition from both Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
Letting agents are to be regulated to protect both tenants and landlords against unfair practices. Housing Minister Mark Prisk has promised legislation that will raise standards across the industry. His proposal will oblige letting and managing agents, and agents involved in leasehold management, to offer tenants and landlords access to an approved redress scheme. It’s
A council has been ordered to compensate the owners of an amusement arcade which lost business when a seaside pier was closed for safety reasons. The case arose after the arcade owners became concerned about the structural integrity of the pier and commissioned a survey. It then provided a copy of the survey to the
Two directors have been disqualified for five years for taking a total of £59,000 from company funds instead of paying creditors after their business got into financial difficulties. Neither director disputed that they took the money at a time when the company’s tax liabilities had risen to more than £109,000 and when a trade creditor