Solicitors for Successful Businesses

Commonsense says that it shouldn’t be possible to have a binding contract to buy a house or other land by email, but this may be possible in law. The legal requirements for a binding contract to buy/sell land are a written document incorporating all the terms agreed by the parties, and signed by all the parties – and Judges have already decided that typing your name on a string of emails can in law be treated as signing to this same extent as having signed a hard copy of the document.   Read the rest of this entry »

If you have been made redundant or are currently under consultation within a redundancy process you may be offered a Compromise Agreement by your employer when your contract of employment has been terminated.

A Compromise Agreement is a legally binding agreement within which you accept a redundancy payment in full and final settlement from your employer.  In return you waive your rights to bring a claim against your employer in a Tribunal.   Read the rest of this entry »

The new Bribery Act 2011 became law on 1 July 2011. To comply, companies must be pro-active in identifying and managing the risk of corruption in their business.

Bribery is widely defined, including:

• Overly lavish corporate hospitality
• bribery committed by overseas associates
• facilitation (or ‘grease’) payments made to foreign government officials to speed up customs clearance.

Businesses commit a new offence of ‘failing to prevent bribery’ if any employee, etc commits bribery with the intention of gaining a business advantage for the company, and the company has not put ‘adequate procedures’ in place to prevent it.  You need know nothing about the bribery– the lack of procedures plus the bribery is all that is needed for the crime.

Act now!  Contact us if you would like more information about this or would like us to review your current procedures and suggest where they could be changed or improved. Please contact Martin Addrison or Paul Hillier at HilliersHRW on 01234 858000.

The Local Government Group has recently published new fire safety guidance tailored to purpose-built blocks of flats.
There are three main pieces of legislation that govern fire safety – Building Regulations, the Housing Act 2004 and the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

Building Regulations provide for fire safety measures when a block of flats is first designed and constructed. However, these Regulations provide no ongoing control for the maintenance of these measures once the building is constructed and only have further effect when material alterations are proposed. Read the rest of this entry »

If your property has been damaged in the recent riots, you may well find that your insurance policy will not cover your losses. Most policies exclude damage resulting from ‘riot’, which in law, means when 12 or more people are present at the disturbance.

If you cannot claim under your insurance policy, you will have the right to claim compensation from the relevant Police authority under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 . The Government is extending the time limit for claims under the Act from 14 to 42 days. The time limit runs from the day the damage occurs, so there is no time to be lost.

For more information on this subject, please contact Charles Goldthorpe in the Kempston office on 01234 858000 or by email on cg@hilliershrw.co.uk.

Well, you can.  Landlords and managing agents may not tell you this but as a flat owner paying a service charge you have a lot of rights, some of them you can exercise on your own, others you need to get together with the other flat owners (or a majority of them) to get your rights.  You can make the landlord get competing quotes for major work, you only have to pay charges if they are reasonable, you do not have to pay for major works unless your landlord warns you in advance, and you do not have to pay for works not properly invoiced for 18 months or more.  Read the rest of this entry »

Now is a good time to be a flat owner with a short lease – the value of your flat may have gone down over the past months/years but that means what you will have to pay to extend your lease by another 90 years, and get rid of the ground rent, will also have gone down as well. Most flat owners who have owned their flat for more than two years, have a right to buy a lease extension at a fair price laid down by law – and not however much your landlord wants to get for it.  Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re starting a company, even if it is with people you know and trust then it is always a good idea to have a Shareholders’ Agreement.

There are a number of advantages to a Shareholders’ Agreement, including and not limited to the following: Read the rest of this entry »

Unpaid invoices represent a serious threat to cash flow and chasing money from customers is unfortunately a fact of business life for most companies. However, if you are owed a debt either by a company or an individual then you need to think twice before issuing proceedings.

Strict rules govern the pre-action conduct of parties in a debt recovery claim and businesses need to be careful to ensure that they comply with the pre-action conduct requirements. If they fail to, the Court may punish you with powerful sanctions such as making an adverse costs order against you.  Read the rest of this entry »

Residential possession claims against tenants or squatters:

With residential property, the old adage that “possession is 9/10 of the law” generally applies, and any kind of occupation, including squatting, results in the Landlord generally having to incur time, cost and aggravation to obtain possession of their property.  The penalties for failing to use the correct legal process can be severe, potentially including criminal as well as civil law liability.

In almost all situations relating to residential property it is a legal requirement that a landlord obtains a Court Order before he can enforce any right to possession of or re-entry to the property. Read the rest of this entry »