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In coming to the aid of a frail and elderly householder, the High Court has ruled in a landmark case that she was on the receiving end of a fraudulent misrepresentation when a would-be purchaser of her home was falsely described to her as a cash buyer. A copy of a contract before the Court indicated that the woman, aged in her 80s, had signed a contract agreeing to the sale of her home for £840,000. Following a purported exchange of contracts, the purchaser, an investment company, launched proceedings against...

Parents may be worthy of praise and deeply love their children, but it sadly does not always follow that they are able to provide them with a stable home. The High Court made that point in sanctioning a little boy's placement for adoption. Due to concerns that he was not receiving a good enough standard of parenting, a local authority placed him in temporary foster care and sought care and placement orders. His parents, although separated, staunchly resisted plans for his adoption, arguing that his mother was able to look...

Making a will without the benefit of professional legal advice is an excellent recipe for strife between your loved ones after you are gone. That was sadly so in the case of a cancer sufferer who had no understanding that, when she signed her will, she was disinheriting her two beloved children. About two and a half years before she succumbed to the disease, the middle-aged woman signed a will which had been drafted for her by her younger brother using a template downloaded from the internet. Save for her...

Landowners intent on developing their properties can find it intensely annoying when neighbours resist their plans. However, as a High Court ruling made plain, the right to object to planning applications is one of the benefits of living in a democratic country where freedom of expression is taken seriously. The case concerned a property set in an area of outstanding natural beauty, which had become the focus of acrimonious and intractable dispute. Over the years, its owner had made over 50 separate planning applications, many of which drew objections from...