Buying and selling businesses can be a highly complex matter and dispensing with legal formality is a positive invitation to trouble. The point could hardly have been better made than by a High Court case concerning the ill-fated purchase of a fish and chip shop
In an encouraging case for the agricultural industry, a determined organic farmer has been granted the right to set off more than £1.4 million in losses, suffered over a five-year period, against tax due on profits he made in subsequent years. With the help of
Not all disabilities are obvious and employers cannot be guilty of discrimination if they are unaware of a worker’s impairment. The point was made by a decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) concerning a postal worker who suffered from chronic hypertension. The man’s condition, which
Fixed term tenancies, incorporating probationary periods, are a common means by which social housing providers weed out potential nuisance tenants and ensure that their housing stocks remain available to those who really need them. A High Court ruling gave guidance on how such tenancies work
The question of what is and is not a house in multiple occupation (HMO) is far from straightforward to answer and, as a First-tier Tribunal (FTT) decision showed, landlords who fail to take legal advice on the issue can be hit in the pocket after
The distinction between an extension and an annexe is a fine one but, for charities, it can have crucial tax implications. The First-tier Tribunal (FTT) considered the issue in granting VAT exemption in respect of the construction of a new church hall. There was no
Employment contracts that remain unsigned are frequently not worth the paper they are written on. The point was resoundingly made by a High Court case in which a large services company was unable to find even one signed copy of a contract with a senior
Any good family lawyer will tell you that the best way of minimising the expense and stress of divorce proceedings is to be straightforwardly honest. The point was well made by a case in which a successful property developer paid heavily for his misguided attempts
If the tax authorities are left holding the baby as a consequence of so-called carousel fraud, they leave no stone unturned in tracking down perpetrators. However, with the benefit of a dedicated legal team, a City stockbroker, a successful businessman and the businessman’s daughter fought
Unauthorised online streaming of major sporting events, depriving organisers of their legitimate revenues, is ever on the increase. However, as a case in which the High Court came to the aid of a boxing match promoter showed, the law is far from powerless to deal
