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In the realm of social housing, there are few more controversial issues than a child's entitlement to succeed to the secure tenancy of a parent on the latter's death. As a Court of Appeal ruling showed, however, succession rights may quite easily be secured by those who seek legal advice before it is too late. The case concerned a woman in her 60s who, for many years, lived with her mother in a council-owned house of which the latter was the secure tenant. After the mother developed dementia, she had...

The end of a relationship will often have important tax implications which might only be apparent to a trained professional. That was certainly so in the case of a woman who, following the collapse of her marriage, was saddled with a substantial Capital Gains Tax (CGT) bill on the sale of her ex-husband's home. Prior to their divorce, the husband moved out of the former matrimonial home into another property which they jointly owned. After renovating the other property, the husband sold it at a substantial profit. As the property...

Making a will when your death is imminent is almost never a good idea and is often a positive invitation to dispute between your loved ones after you are gone. In a case on point, the first salvo in a tragic inheritance dispute was fired even before the deceased could be laid to rest. Following a family man's death in his 60s, one of his five children sought possession of his body so that she could make funeral arrangements. She had the backing of her siblings, the man's mother and...

For every headline-grabbing 'big money' divorce case there are hundreds of others where a former couple's assets are simply insufficient to meet their reasonable needs. As a High Court ruling showed, judges take a gender-neutral approach to such cases, striving to achieve the fairest possible outcome. The case concerned a couple whose marriage, at least on paper, lasted for about 18 years. For all but six of those years, however, they were married in name only. The marriage had, in effect, been over for well over a decade by the...