The Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (I(PFD)A 1975) permits a claim by a person who has cohabited with the deceased and applies to both opposite sex and same sex partners of the deceased. However, in order to pursue a claim that person will have to establish: • that cohabitation had continued for the whole of the

Legal professional privilege (LPP) does not extend to everything legal professionals have a duty to keep confidential. LPP protects only those confidential communications falling under either of the two heads of legal privilege—legal advice privilege or litigation privilege. LPP applies to communications made in confidence between lawyer and client for the purpose of giving or receiving legal advice. LPP protects from inspection: • confidential • communications • between A (the client or internal agent) and B (the professional legal adviser or in-house lawyer) • for the sole or dominant purpose of giving or obtaining • legal advice or assistance on A’s rights and liabilities and what should prudently and sensibly be done in the relevant legal context There is no established list of communications

Communication between a lawyer and a client for the purposes of giving or receiving legal advice is covered by legal advice privilege, which means that there is no requirement to produce the document for inspection within a disclosure exercise in the context of court proceedings, regardless of whether it is material to the case. This ensures that companies and individuals alike are able to seek legal advice and maintain confidentiality. There are a number of criteria that must be met for legal advice privilege to apply: • there must be a lawyer present in the communication for legal advice privilege to apply • there must be a client present, who is an individual authorised to give Instructions and receive advice in relation to the specific issue • there

Requirement to serve a notice of funding Prior to legal reforms under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO 2012) in 2013, there was a requirement in the Civil Procedure Rules to serve a notice of funding in certain circumstances. The previous rules regarding service of a notice of funding were set out in CPR 43 and CPR 44. The old CPR 44.3B stated: 'Limits on recovery under funding arrangements (1) Unless the court orders otherwise, a party may not recover as an additional liability— (a) any proportion of the percentage increase relating to the cost to the legal representative of the postponement of the payment of his fees and expenses; (b) any provision made by a membership organisation which exceeds the likely cost to that party of the premium of an insurance policy against the risk of incurring a liability to pay the costs of other parties to the proceedings; (c) any additional liability for any period during

Under section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980, an action on a contract must be brought within six years from the date of accrual of the action, and 12 years if it is a deed. For more information on the principal limitation periods, see Practice Note: Limitation Act 1980—the principal limitation periods. There

Spouses and civil partners are generally treated as a single unit for the purposes of the higher 3% rates. If a spouse (or civil partner) purchases an additional residential property alone, the transaction will be subject to the higher rates if it would have been a higher rates

STOP PRESS relating to MTT and DTT legislation in Finance Act 2026: Section 50 of, and Schedule 8 to, the Finance Act 2026 amends various aspects of the MTT and DTT provisions. Among the changes, the draft legislation incorporates the OECD’s Administrative Guidance (January 2025) on limiting the extent to which pre-entry deferred tax assets and liabilities, arising from tax benefits granted by governments, can be taken into account in determining a group member’s effective tax rate. The latter will be treated as coming into force for accounting periods ending on or after 21 July 2025. The other measures will mostly take effect for accounting periods beginning on or after 31 December 2025,

For the purposes of this Q&A we have assumed that standard disclosure has been ordered as defined under CPR 31. Standard disclosure requires a party to proceedings to conduct a ‘reasonable’ search and disclose the documents which are deemed relevant under CPR 31.6, namely documents which: • it relies on • adversely affects its opponent's case • support its opponent's case or • documents they are required to disclose pursuant to a relevant practice direction The CPR does not define these terms but the court's have interpreted

Application for authorisation process The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) authorisation process involves a firm making an application for permission to carry out one or more regulated activities. This is referred to as 'Part 4A permission' because it is given under Part 4A of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA 2000). The FCA may ask for any information it reasonably requires before determining the application, and it has a broad discretion as to what form this information takes. If the firm has completed its application pack correctly, attached all the required information within the proper time frame, and responded promptly to any further requests by the regulator, the FCA has up to six months from the date it receives the completed application to make a decision. Straightforward applications should take between three and four months. Where firms send in an incomplete application, the process can take up to twelve

For the purposes of this Q&A, it is assumed that the relevant contract is a business-to-business contract for the supply of goods and/or services subject to English law. This Q&A does not address the content or operation of insolvency law in foreign jurisdictions. Moreover, the issues raised in this Q&A are wide-ranging and only an overall snapshot is provided. Given the recent enactment of section 233B of the Insolvency Act 1986 (IA 1986), no authorities ruling on the question definitively yet exist. The starting point is IA 1986, s 233B(1)–(2), which provides that the section applies to a contract for the supply of goods or services to a company (the customer) which is subject to a ‘relevant insolvency procedure’. It should be noted that that section is not expressed to operate differently depending on the governing law of the contract. Where the insolvent customer

Does non payment of a deposit invalidate the notice? Our Practice Note: Guide to the right to enfranchisement and lease extensions of houses under the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 (LRA 1967) discusses the service of a valid notice of tenant's claim to acquire the freehold or an extended lease under Part I of the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 (LRA 1967) (tenant’s notice). Once a valid tenant’s notice has been served, the landlord is entitled to request the payment of the deposit from the tenant, which must be paid within 14 days (Leasehold Reform (Enfranchisement and Extension) Regulations 1967, SI 1967/1879, Sch, Pt 1, condition 1). Section 22 of the LRA 1967 outlines the conditions that affect the validity of the tenant's notice. Non payment of a deposit is not specifically mentioned as a factor that will invalidate the notice. Sch, Pt 1, condition 10 of the Leasehold Reform (Enfranchisement

In answering this Q&A, we have assumed that all parties and data subjects are exclusively based in the UK, no overseas laws or regulation applies, that there will be no transfer of personal data outside the European Economic Area, that the personal data includes no ‘sensitive personal data’ and that the customers and other data subjects are adults with full legal capacity. For the purposes of our response, we have focussed on the position of a private sector data controller under the current Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA 1998) (we have not considered the superseding General Data Protection Regulation, which comes into force in 2018, nor have we considered the use of data for marketing purposes or sharing of confidential or proprietary data). For information on what ‘sensitive personal data’ is, see Q&A: What is sensitive personal data for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998? What is ‘data sharing’ In its Data sharing code of practice, the Information Commissioner explains how the DPA 1998 applies to the sharing of personal