Articles

Join our seminar on Succession Planning - Wednesday 30th October at Dominus Way

Lawson-West supports Welland Park Academy Careers Evening

Time is running short to book your places at The Business Quiz evening

Lawson-West Solicitors celebrate the one-year anniversary of Market Harborough merger with Brown & Co

Phoebe Tranter, solicitor in the Probate & Wills team shares x10 Last Will and Testament FAQs

World Mental Health Day: stress in the workplace now a commonplace occurrence

Lawson-West Solicitors in Leicestershire has announced the promotion of three more solicitors

Sexual Orientation Discrimination - Association, Perception and “Related to”

The demise of Thomas Cook makes us all fearful about our own employers and their viability

Lawson-West sponsors Women in Business Awards 2019

Set to come into force on 6th April 2020, HMRC have released a raft of updated changes to the Off-Payroll Working rules and, in this article, we explore what these changes are and the affect they will have on businesses.

BREAKING NEWS - The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill, which aimed to bring in a system of no-fault divorce, has also been automatically dropped as a result of the Prime Minister proroguing Parliament.

In this article we look at divorce and separation from the children’s perspective and consider ways to limit the impact of this life-changing event.

Lawson-West hosts 'The Business Quiz' - 29th October - we are supporting LOROS in this charity quiz evening

Taking place on Tuesday 12th November, Lawson-West is sponsoring the Medium Business Executive of the Year category.

David Heys identifies a few of the Hard Brexit choices that business owners may need to face in the coming months.

IHT is the tax applied to a person’s estate (their money, properties and possessions) after they have died.

A Beginner's Guide to Attorneyship - Everything you need to know if you are appointed as a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA).

Our next Leicester seminar: Making Sense of Business Contracts

NEBOSH donates £500 cheque to LOROS as thank you for Lawson-West kindness

Due to the success and expansion of NEBOSH, the Leicester-based global organisation providing health, safety and environmental qualifications, the company found itself bursting at the seams for business accommodation to house its growing number of staff in Dominus Way, Meridian Business Park.

Employment tribunals can be unpleasant and uncomfortable and usually come at a time when an employee is already upset and worried.

The likelihood of a hard Brexit is looming for Q4 2019 and we believe homeowners are choosing to move house now, rather than wait any longer, avoiding the uncertainty that a hard-Brexit could bring to the housing market if they waited until the Autumn.
If you have been holding-off of putting your property on the market, now would be a good time to get going. With house price increases continuing in specific regions (North West, East Midlands, West Midlands all predicted to be 3.0% price rise by the end of 2019), the Leicestershire property market is set to rise and the volume of house sales is increasing.

The common understanding of a Will is a document that leaves your property and money to others when you die, but it actually does much more than that.

Law firms and business support organisations talk about placing clients at the centre of their thinking, but reaching-out to business individuals means more than just providing perfect legal advice and beautifully crafted letters.

Support for Market Harborough June Carnival

14 June 2019 Employment Law event - Innovation Centre Market Harborough

Lawson-West supports Alzheimer's Society with cake bake sale 13 June 2019

Most employers understand that pregnant women have protected employee rights should an employer try to dismiss them whilst pregnant …so why do pregnancy discrimination cases still happen?

Lawson-West’s employment team of lawyers from the firm’s Market Harborough office is co-hosting with The Ink Group a workshop event at the Market Harborough Innovation Centre on 14 June 2019

A recently concluded case, Bates v Post Office Ltd, has brought into question the efficacy of the contracts between sub-postmasters and the Post Office, in terms of their implied duty of good faith in ‘relational’ contracts. In a landmark case which concluded in recent days, the High Court has ruled that sub-postmasters' contracts with the Post Office were "relational contracts", in which there was an implied obligation of good faith.

Lawyers Vicky Jones and Christian Jenkins support local Leicestershire charity LOROS at the Market Harborough Innovation Centre

In a landmark leap forward in equal rights, Swedish car manufacturer, Volvo, has launched a pilot gender-neutral parental leave policy for the entire European, Middle East and Africa sales teams.

Employment Appeal Tribunal sends case back to Employment Tribunal for further hearing. The case between Mr & Mrs Frupp and the Partington Group PLC, argues that the Claimants were paid less than minimum wage for a period of 7 years.

According to Ministry of Justice Figures, there were 6,550 disability discrimination claims at employment tribunals last year. This is a 37% increase on the year before, and represents a growth rate which is eight times faster than the increase in total claims over the same period.

EU-wide rules were recently approved by the European Parliament which, when ratified, will lay down new, EU-wide standards to protect whistleblowers. Recent scandals, such as Cambridge Analytica and the Panama Papers, have highlighted the importance of whistleblowers in helping to fight corruption and exposing unlawful activities that are damaging to public interests and our general welfare.

The Islamic tradition Ramadan will commence this Sunday 5th May for 30 days. During this time individuals observing Ramadan will fast between the hours of sunrise and sunset. As an employer it is important to be aware of anyone in your team who is observing Ramadan and ensure suitable provisions are in place for those individuals in order to support them. Fasting will take place mainly during working hours and it is important to be aware of the potential impact it can have in the workplace.

A recent article in the Times newspaper stated that five prosecutions a week are being brought due to alleged abuse through a Lasting Power of Attorney. They also quoted a figure of over 2,000 cases a year being investigated. But although this sounds high, it is suspected that 1 in 6 Lasting Powers of Attorney will be abused.

Flexible working is, perhaps, the panacea for many parents. In addition, manged in the correct manner, it may be a long-term solution for employers too, facing a skills gap, an issue with finding employees in a post-Brexit Britain and even to resource existing vacancies that require a particular skill or personality fit. So, what is the problem?

In October 2018, the government started a consultation into whether organisations should be required to report on the pay differentials between people from different ethnic backgrounds. This consultation was largely a response to a report by Baroness McGregor-Smith: ‘Race in the Workplace – The McGregor-Smith Review’.

A landmark ruling in a contentious probate case has recently been reported upon by Gordon Exall, Barrister, Zenith Chambers, Leeds & Hardwicke, London. The case, in which a ‘limitation amnesty’ was agreed between parties in reference to a claim that the monies left on trust by her late husband, were not sufficient to meet her needs, has hit the legal press following a statement in the ruling by Mr. Justice Mostyn.

The Government has today announced that the law relating to divorce will change to introduce no fault divorce. In the first fundamental changes to divorce law in over 45 years, the introduction of a no fault divorce is expected imminently.

On the 6th November 2018, the government reintroduced the idea of a “banded” probate court fee; charging those with a lower estate value a lower amount than those with a higher estate value. The date for these increases was announced as the 1st April 2019, and those of us making applications were working harder than ever to ensure applications were in before this date.

As occurs every April, there are a number of changes to employment law, remuneration and workers’ rights which have been published and come into effect this month. This article covers the top six changes that all employers should be aware of.

The UK’s Electronic Communications Code (ECC) has been updated a number of times in recent months, to support the government’s broadband ambitions. The 2017 Electronic Communications Code came into force on the 28th December 2017, giving telecommunications operators statutory rights to install and operate electronic communications apparatus on, under or over land in connection with the provision of their network.

A recent study has found that last year employees In the UK worked the equivalent of £32 billion worth of unpaid overtime. In working hours this equates to over 2 billion hours of overtime. Whilst sitting down to write this at home after a day at work, this is hardly surprising.

Employee wellbeing is not a new phenomenon, but the recent increase in awareness and publicity surrounding the matter has forced employers to act. The provision of rest breaks, flexible start and finish times and working environments are all under scrutiny but what does the law state?

Managers are often promoted because they are excelling in their role. It may be argued that excelling within a role does not automatically make you an excellent leader.

If you believe you are at the heart of an equal pay issue, in the first instance you need to determine whether the issue is in fact and equal pay or gender pay. These are two very different issues within the workplace, but both could be grounds to make a claim.

More often than not, to buy a house, you will require a deposit. The ability to evidence where this money has come from is a crucial part of the purchase process and an inability to do so can be very problematic.

In June 2016, the UK referendum on EU membership was taken and the UK voted, by a narrow margin, to exit the EU. On the 29th March 2017, the UK Government served formal notice under Article 50 of The Treaty on European Union to terminate the UK’s membership of the EU.