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When people dispose of assets shortly before having themselves declared bankrupt, it is inevitable that eyebrows will often be raised. However, as a judge's ruling showed, it is one thing to allege an improper motive and quite another to prove it. The case concerned a businessman who transferred a 50 per cent share in his home to his wife about four months before he was made bankrupt on his own petition. His trustees in bankruptcy questioned the timing of the transaction. They argued that the transfer should be rescinded and...

Dark secrets lurking in your family background are likely to cause you untold pain. As one case showed, however, bringing the truth to light in the safe environment of a family court can draw the sting and bring peace to you and future generations. The case concerned a middle-aged woman who had, since her teens, lived with the knowledge that the man who was named as her father on her birth certificate – the putative father – was not in fact related to her. She was in truth the offspring...

The categories of business that enjoy VAT exemption are highly restricted and any attempt to extend them is likely to encounter stiff opposition from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). That was certainly so in the case of a woman who provided private tuition in the skills of dog grooming. The woman argued that her business benefited from a statutory VAT exemption that applies to private tuition in subjects that are ordinarily taught in a number of schools or universities. On that basis, she asserted that she was not obliged to...

Judges have no power to rewrite your will after your death so as to achieve a result which, in their view, better reflects your wishes. The High Court made that point in upholding the validity of a Parkinson's disease sufferer's will although, at least in mathematical terms, it did not achieve equality between his four children. By his will, the father left his beloved smallholding – which had recently been valued informally at £50,000 – to one of his sons. In an apparent attempt at even-handedness, he left each of...