Section 25 of the Administration of Estates Act 1925 (AEA 1925) imposes a duty on the personal representative (PR) to collect and get in the real and personal estate of the deceased and administer it according to law. Section 32 of the Act provides that the deceased’s debts are recoverable from any personal or real estate left behind. As set out in our Practice Note: Registering the grant and collecting in the principal estate assets, the PR may have to realise assets as soon as possible on receipt of the grant in order to repay any inheritance tax loan and the funeral expenses and debts. Other sales may be necessary in the course of the administration to meet other liabilities. Subject

While we are not aware of case law authority specifically dealing with this issue, the terms of collateral arrangements, even those which are personal to the parties, can be read by the court in conjunction with the terms of a lease (Allied Dunbar Assurance v Homebase). Accordingly, on the basis of this principle, a court could be made aware of the terms of a side letter under the current lease in deciding the terms of the renewal lease. This would obviously

Side letters are often used: • to make arrangements and grant concessions (eg in relation to the permitted use, the standards of repair or rental concessions), or • to avoid ambiguity, for example, on assignment or rent review The terms of the letters are usually intended to be: • legally binding • personal to the parties to the letter or binding on successors

STOP PRESS: From 6 April 2017, the Insolvency Rules 1986, SI 1986/1925 were revoked and replaced by the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016 (IR 2016), SI 2016/1024. The content in this Q&A may have been affected by this change. Claiming statutory interest, whether or not stated in the statutory demand It should be noted initially that the courts have warned against the use of statutory demands and bankruptcy petitions for debt collection purposes, and certain claims which have been included in a petition debt in order to bring the petition debt up to the bankruptcy level (which will increase from £750 to £5,000 from 1 October 2015—see the Insolvency Act 1986 (Amendment) Order 2015, SI 2015/922) have been disallowed. For example, the costs of an abortive execution cannot be added to a judgment debt—see: Re Long, ex p Cuddeford. Interest on a debt can be included in a statutory demand—this is specifically

STOP PRESS: From 6 April 2017, the Insolvency Rules 1986, SI 1986/1925 were revoked and replaced by the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016 (IR 2016), SI 2016/1024. The content in this Q&A may have been affected by this change. Provable debts On the making of a bankruptcy order, the court will rarely make a costs order in favour of the petitioning creditor in respect of its costs. This does not mean that the petitioning creditor cannot seek to recover those costs; rather, those costs are specifically dealt with as an expense of the bankruptcy by virtue of rule 6.224(1)(h) of the Insolvency Rules 1986 (IR 1986), SI 1986/1925. The question, therefore, is whether a creditor is entitled to claim—as part of its proof of debt—any sum due to it which is to be paid as an expense of the bankruptcy. For further reading in relation to

Executing documents properly when one or more parties to a contract are not physically present is sometimes known as virtual signing or virtual closing. An electronic signature is the electronic equivalent of a handwritten signature and links a person to the contents of an electronic document. The primary UK legislation on electronic signatures is the Electronic Communications Act 2000 (ECA 2000). Electronic signatures are broadly defined in ECA 2000 as: ‘so much of anything in electronic form as: (a) is incorporated into or otherwise logically associated with any electronic communication or electronic data, and (b) purports to be used by the individual creating it to sign’. Stavros Neocleous and Kalliroy Neocleous v Christine Rees established that a typed name at the bottom of an email can constitute an electronic signature. It is now generally accepted that typing a name at the bottom of an email can constitute a valid and admissible electronic signature. In recent years the English courts have generally taken a permissive

It is perfectly possible for two planning consents to be issued that are not mutually consistent. This may be by reason of a condition, obligation or the specification of the consented work. Both are equally valid as consents, however they cannot both be fully implemented. Of course, planning consents do not need to be implemented

Under section 174(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, a person having an interest in the land to which an enforcement notice relates or a relevant occupier may appeal to the Secretary of State against the notice, on the grounds that: ‘(a) planning permission ought to be granted or the condition or limitation concerned ought to be discharged. An appeal on this ground is not possible where a related application for planning permission has been made and the local planning authority (LPA) issued an enforcement notice before the time for determining the application has expired (b) the matters stated in the enforcement notice have not occurred (c) the matters stated in the enforcement notice (if they occurred) do not constitute a breach of planning control (d) at the date when the

As a general rule, a decision of a local planning authority (LPA) to grant planning permission under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (TCPA 1990) will be treated as valid unless and until it is set aside by the courts (see, for example, Gerber v Wiltshire Council). As such, a planning permission can usually be relied upon, even where its grant was ultra vires, unless and until it has been successfully challenged. However, development

Defining the planning unit Planning permission is required where there has been a material change of use. The courts use the concept of the planning unit to determine the area of land to be considered when identifying the primary use of land, and whether any material change of use has occurred. The case of Burdle v Secretary of State for the Environment set out tests to assist in identifying the planning unit. These tests include establishing the unit of occupation, identifying whether there is a sole primary use and identifying whether the uses are geographically separated. The question of whether

This Q&A covers UK law only. Artistic works are material objects that are visual images. Section 4 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) deals with artistic works and includes sculptures. Sculptures are three-dimensional objects carved or shaped by hand and have included: toy soldiers, medals, coins and moulds for toasted sandwich machines. See the section on artistic works in Practice Note: Copyright—protectable works. Lucasfilm Ltd and others v Ainsworth (Lucasfilm) didn’t just deal with the Stormtrooper helmet as a utilitarian object. In the action, Lucasfilm also claimed that the toy Stormtroopers which were subsequently produced (and which are reproductions of the Stormtrooper helmet and armour), were 'sculptures' within the meaning of what is now CDPA 1988, s 4(1). This claim was unsuccessful and the case went up to the Supreme Court (SC). The court considered that a toy figurine of this type would not qualify as a sculpture, under the artistic works

Ensuring that a written contract contains the correct information is important as it affects the rights and obligations of the parties. However, backdating documents is potentially a criminal offence under the Theft Act 1968, and is also contrary to the rules of professional conduct. There are a few extremely limited circumstances in which a simple agreement might be dated with a date that was earlier than the date it was signed. These include if the document was lost or if a potential