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The legislation that introduced the Right to Rent scheme, which went live in February 2016 and compels landlords to check the immigration status of their tenants, has never been popular with landlords or tenants. Recently, the High Court ruled that the legislation is incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1998, concluding that the likelihood of discrimination outweighed any public benefit it may have of controlling unlawful immigration. However, this is not yet the end of Right to Rent, as the Government has indicated that it intends to appeal the decision.Source: Concious

The law in the UK is not supportive of people who assist, however unwillingly, those they love who want to die. Although such wishes are often borne out of suffering years of intractable pain or disability, assisting the suicide of another remains a criminal offence. Recently, a woman who accompanied her husband to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland had to go to the High Court to enforce his wish that she should inherit his estate. He had suffered for four years from progressive supranuclear palsy, an incurable disease, before deciding...

Trusts have been gradually falling out of favour, according to a recent report. It is thought that the fall of some 4 per cent in trusts submitting tax returns last year (and 30 per cent since 2003/2004) is due to both a lack of understanding of trusts and to tax reforms introduced in 2006 that made some trusts less tax efficient. A recent case shows some of the complexities that can arise with the use of trusts. It involved a woman whose husband passed his estate into various trusts in...

The quality of British justice is respected around the world – but there are inevitably occasions when judges overstep the mark. In a family case on point, a mother had her two young children taken into care after a judge dismissed out of hand the  arguments put forward in her favour. The mother was separated from the children's father and trouble broke out when he failed to return her four-year-old daughter after taking her on holiday for a week. The mother and others went to his home, causing a fracas,...