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HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) must publicise changes in the tax regime and taxpayers are not obliged to go rooting around its website in an attempt to keep up to date. The First-tier Tribunal (FTT) made that point in finding that a father had a reasonable excuse for his delayed payment of tax on his Child Benefit receipts. Until 7 January 2013, Child Benefit was a universal benefit payable to the parents of any British child. It thereafter became means tested with the introduction of the High Income Child Benefit...

How, if at all, is the duty of local authorities to allow children in their care reasonable contact with their parents affected by social distancing rules arising from the COVID-19 pandemic? The Court of Appeal confronted that issue in a guideline case. The case concerned three young children who were taken into interim care after one of them suffered a broken leg, an injury which was considered likely to have been inflicted. The mother was in the pool of potential perpetrators and the children were therefore taken from her care...

Amidst widespread homelessness, owners of investment properties who allow them to stand empty for extended periods can find themselves on the receiving end of compulsory purchase orders (CPOs). Exactly that happened in a case concerning a desirable end-of-terrace property which had been vacant for 25 years. The house was located in an urban area where about 5,000 people were in urgent, high or medium need of permanent accommodation. The local authority took the view that the property's vacant status since 1994, combined with its deteriorating condition, was detrimental to the...

The whole point of engaging a professional to draft your will is to make your wishes clear in precise and unambiguous terms. If your will falls below that high standard the result, as a High Court ruling showed, can be family stalemate after you are gone. The case concerned a widower who died without children, leaving an estate worth over £600,000. By his will, he made some modest charitable gifts and bequeathed the remainder to 'such all of my nephew's and niece's children'. It was agreed that the apostrophes in...