Since 6 April 2007, all deposits taken by landlords for residential assured shorthold tenancies (ASTs) in England and Wales must be protected by a tenancy deposit scheme (TDS). The parties to an AST cannot contract out of the obligations. Within 30 days of receipt of the deposit, the landlord must comply with the initial requirements of the TDS by giving the tenant and any relevant

For the purposes of this Q&A we have assumed that the UK does not accede to the Lugano Convention. If the UK does become party to the Lugano Convention from 1 January 2021 (or shortly thereafter), UK judgments may be enforceable in EU Member States under that convention and the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements (the Convention) will be much less significant in this context. The position of the UK government, as set out in the Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Act 2020, is that the provisions in the Convention will continue to apply to the UK post IP completion day without interruption. While this will mean that the UK can find that it has jurisdiction under the convention for agreements that pre-date 1 January 2021, this is contrary to the position as set out

This Q&A discusses when to issue a claim form in relation to making an application for permission to serve that claim form outside the jurisdiction. When making an application for permission to serve the claim form out of the jurisdiction, there is not a specific

Practice Direction 51V does not indicate that the pilot can be extended to cases which fall outside the categories identified in CPR PD 51V, para 1.6 and in the circumstances there does not appear to be a discretion to extend the pilot scheme to other cases. While it is possible that the courts operating the pilot scheme might in practice accept a case which falls outside the parameters of the scheme there is a very real risk that this could cause administrative confusion and delay. For example, transferring a file between courts can often result in significant delays to proceedings

The general rule is that a claimant, by issuing a claim, and a defendant, by acknowledging service of it, submit to the jurisdiction of the court. Where the defendant fails to acknowledge service of the claim form or fails to file a defence they will be deemed to have submitted to the court’s jurisdiction. However, CPR 11 provides a procedural mechanism by which a defendant can avoid the normal procedural consequences for failing to file a defence and come before the court without being deemed to have submitted to the jurisdiction of the court otherwise than for the specific purpose of challenging the court’s jurisdiction. That challenge can be on the basis either that the court has no jurisdiction or that although it does, it should not exercise that jurisdiction. How to challenge the court’s jurisdiction In order to dispute the court’s jurisdiction, the defendant must file

When issuing a Part 7 claim using Form N1 it is possible to state that the value of the negligence claim is 'unknown'. However, as per the current court fees schedule this would incur a £10,000 fee as the value of the claim is treated as unlimited. In this regard, see the note to Fee 1.1 in the Civil

An application can be made to amalgamate freehold title numbers. The application would be made to HM Land Registry using the AP1 Form (assuming that at least one of the titles is already registered). AP1 Form is available as a smart form and includes a link to HM Land Registry

Failure to comply with an order in time Where a party fails to comply with an order in time, they could face an application from another party for a statement of case to be struck out under CPR 3.4(2)(c) (failure to comply with a rule, PD or court order). Alternatively, the order may automatically impose a sanction, such as strike out or a lesser sanction. In that case, CPR 3.8(1) applies with the effect that the sanction for failure to comply that is imposed by the order has effect unless relief from sanctions is granted. No sanction imposed by a rule, PD or court order If the original court order did not impose a sanction

The court has a duty to manage cases in accordance with the principles of ‘active case management’ which are set out in CPR 1.4(2). These principles include: ‘…(b) identifying the issues at an early stage (c) deciding promptly which issues need full investigation and trial and accordingly disposing summarily of the others and (d) deciding the order in which issues are to be resolved…’ All of these principles can be used to order the determination of a preliminary issue if it is reasonable to do so in the circumstances of a particular case. The court has a power to order the determination of a preliminary issue as a case management decision pursuant

Finding a document or an image, perhaps online, that perfectly fits the project you are working on can be deeply satisfying. However various questions arise (or should arise) such as: how do I know I can use it, are there any restrictions on use and do I need to do anything before I use it? What is a copyright work? A sensible starting position would be to acknowledge that copyright may exist in a work. Copyright recognises the intellectual effort expended by an author in creating a work but this is not so much about ideas as about the way they are expressed. In the UK, copyright is not a registered right: it arises automatically in specified categories of works. These categories are: original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works, sound recordings, films or broadcasts, and typographical arrangements of published editions. For copyright to subsist in a work, the work must include an expression of the 'intellectual creation' of the author. 'Intellectual creation' does not

Please see the following resources, which give you all the information you need for changing a company's articles of association: • Amending the articles of association—flowchart, which sets out the key considerations and actions required when amending the articles of association of a company: • our Practice Note:

For the purposes of this Q&A, we have assumed that the 'error' which is referred to is agreed by both (or all) parties to the document to be an error, and that the parties are not in dispute as to what the document could or should have said. It is also assumed that this error is discovered just after the relevant document was signed, for example at a signing meeting or shortly following signing. Broadly speaking, alterations made to a document after signing will not affect the validity of the document if they are authorised by all parties concerned or are immaterial in nature. Amendment of document by consent The simplest way of correcting an error in a document is through an amendment to that document. If the parties are in agreement on the proposed amendment and the error is discovered at or about the time of the signing, best practice is to have all of the relevant