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Unoccupied and decaying properties can have a serious impact on the neighbourhood and can become a focus for vandalism and anti-social behaviour. However, as one case showed, local authorities have a range of powers to deal with such eyesores, even if their owners cannot be traced. The case concerned a 1950s-built three-bedroom house that had been empty for a number of years and was in an advanced state of disrepair. The council had made fruitless efforts to contact the property's owner, who had apparently disappeared. In response to complaints from...

One reason why it is rarely advisable to represent yourself in litigation is that you need a good lawyer to tell you when you are wrong. That point could hardly have been more clearly made than by a case in which a widower claimed that his sister had made him a deathbed gift of her £900,000 home. The sister's substantial house represented almost the entirety of her wealth. She died without making a will and, ordinarily, her estate would have passed in three equal shares to her two brothers and...

People aged over 55 who have only a small (less than £30,000) pension pot in a defined benefit (final salary) scheme or in some instances in a defined contribution scheme paying only a small pension – but not where the pension pot has been used to buy an annuity – can normally cash in such schemes, taking the entire pension pot as a lump sum under the 'trivial commutation' and 'small pots' rules, which were introduced a few years ago. The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (LITRG) has published a...

When a person has an accident involving a car and a claim results, it is usually dealt with by the insurer of the driver concerned. If the driver is not insured or is untraced, a procedure exists to ensure a claim can still go ahead, only in this case the Motor Insurers' Bureau (MIB) is responsible for settling the claim. The MIB is funded collectively by the country's motor insurers. Claims met by the MIB under the 'Untraced Drivers Agreement' are normally paid out in rather smaller amounts than...