Following the Prime Minister’s announcement of lockdown measures on 23 March 2020, separated parents and their children were left in the position of trying to negotiate a new and complicated landscape in which they were uncertain of their rights in relation to child visitation and other important matters.However, even a close reading of the initial lockdown measures failed to provide much in the way of useful clarification. They told us that we were only allowed to leave our homes for the following reasons:Essential shopping, but as infrequently as possible.One form of exercise a day – to be carried out alone…

The global fallout from the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak continues and is being felt in every possible sector and section of society.As the mediating point for every regulated aspect of our lives, the legal services sector is now in a unique position, but, like so many other sectors, such as hospitals and supermarkets, it runs the risks becoming overwhelmed at a time when businesses, individuals, employers and employees face not only their usual raft of day-to-day disputes and challenges but must also grapple with the legal and financial fallouts of COVID-19.In some ways it is fortunate that COVID-19 has occurred at…

Cross-border probate disputes are inherently complex and also have a tendency to be high-value, although as the world becomes increasingly connected, such disputes are becoming a more common feature for families across all kinds of economic groups.The recent case of Rehman v Hamid [2019] EWHC 3692 (Ch) serves as a useful reminder of the need to ensure the correct jurisdiction for a dispute arising in relation to cross-border probate issues. Rehman v HamidThe case concerned the mirror wills made by a married couple, Mr and Mrs Mukhtar Ali, in the UK on 23 February 1993. Each appointed the other as…

So, 31 January has come and gone, and the EU Withdrawal Bill has now passed into law. If you thought this would put an end to all talks of messy divorce, think again.Yes, the UK’s decision to end our relationship with Europe and to instead embark on the separation process of Brexit has many implications for family law, not least – although most ironically – within the pertinent area of cross-border divorce. The end of Brussels IIWhereas once cross-border divorce solicitors in the UK could rely on Brussels II Regulation for settling jurisdictional issues relating to divorce and child law,…

The ‘Litigation and Dispute Resolution’ departments of full service legal practices in the UK will, almost universally, provide Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) services or at the very least they will be able to facilitate access to trained mediators.ADR has been used in the UK for many years and particularly since 1999 when the Woolf reforms gave rise to the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR). The CPR identified principles that aimed to make civil litigation quicker, fairer, more cost-effective and less adversarial for all clients, whether they be commercial clients or private individuals.It is now expected that parties to a dispute, including…

‘If I had my way, I’d make A do X and B do Y…’ has long been a treatment proffered by layperson pundits across the land, whether discussing politics in the pub or the outcomes of legal proceedings during a dinner party.However, a man from Kansas, USA, recently sought to convert this sort of sentiment into action when he asked a court to let him engage his ex-wife in sword-to-sword combat in order to resolve their embittered and long-standing divorce arguments. Asking that they be allowed to legally resolve their disputes on the field of battle, the appellant, David Ostrom,…

2019 was a challenging year for those working in the Wills and probate sector. To begin with, the government’s proposed new fee structures and regulatory changes were, after a long period of sustained and vociferous criticism, abandoned. Next, HM Courts and Tribunals Service’s restructuring of the probate registry in the form of a centralised, digitised system caused delays and backlog, leading to consternation, frustration and considerable bad press.Probate solicitors have, on occasion, borne the brunt of client frustration while at the same time having to negotiate their own way through uncertainty, change and government U-turns. This situation has been particularly…

Fifty, or even thirty years ago, if you had asked a school classroom to draw a picture of the typical British family, chances are the pupils would have drawn a picture of a husband and wife and one or two children. Yes, statistically it is likely that there would have been a few single-parent families in the representations, but ideas of the nuclear, heteronormative family were, back then, entrenched and largely unchallenged.Today, more and more children belong to families made up of single parents, co-habiting parents, same-sex couples, step-families, and mixed families living across different households. Inevitably, the changing structure…

Lloyds Bank is in hot water over an embarrassing failure to disclose the Wills of 9,000 deceased customers, a bungle which has – in a probate solicitor’s worst nightmare – led to hundreds of estates potentially being distributed incorrectly.The Wills were stored as part of the bank’s now defunct “safe custody” service for Wills. In an attempt to seemingly downplay the error, Lloyds has said that the “vast majority” of estates concerned were unaffected, either because the stored Will had been superseded by a new document or because a duplicate had been successfully stored in another location. The blunder highlights…

Figures from a leading provider of legacy information to charities, Smee & Ford, have revealed that in the UK in 2018 more than £3 billion was bequeathed to charities in Wills. There are some interesting trends: not only is the figure 50 per cent higher than it was a decade ago, it is the smaller charities who are increasingly becoming the beneficiaries. This follows a number of high-profile scandals involving larger charities – for example, Kids Company in 2015 and Oxfam in 2018.There is also the negative issue of pressure tactics applied by some of the major charities. For example,…