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If a neighbour has been granted planning permission for a development to which you object, you may feel that there is little or nothing you can do about it. As a tribunal ruling showed, however, you may well be wrong about that. The case concerned a proposal to demolish four suburban houses and replace them with a block of 33 flats, standing up to five storeys high. Given the acute need for more new homes, planning permission was granted for the project. Standing in the developer's way, however, were restrictive covenants...

You might think that the making of a care order implies blame on the part of a child's parents. However, as a family judge's ruling in the case of a tragedy-struck 14-year-old girl made plain, you would certainly be wrong about that. The girl was brought up by her mother alone after her father died when she was very young. Her mother subsequently suffered a catastrophic brain haemorrhage and was thereafter herself in need of round-the-clock care. She could not look after her daughter or exercise her parental responsibility for...

Adults who lack the capacity to make important decisions for themselves are entitled to their autonomy and should never be equated to children. The Court of Appeal trenchantly made that point in directing that a man with a severe learning disability should be vaccinated against COVID-19. The man, aged in his 20s, also suffered from congenital heart defects and his mother and primary carer was deeply anxious that vaccination against the virus would place him at particular risk. A judge nevertheless found that vaccination would be in his best interests...

Engaging a professional to draft your will and give advice has many advantages that may not be apparent at the time. In a case on point, a lawyer's prudence in arranging a medical assessment of an elderly client proved decisive in the Court of Appeal's decision to uphold the validity of his final will. Following the death of an elderly farmer and businessman, his estate was valued at almost £2 million. By his first two wills, he left business assets to two of his children and farmland to his third....