When you buy or sell a property, the estate agents, property lawyers or mortgage brokers all seem to want the same info from you before they’ll take you on as a client. Why is that?
What they’re doing is checking that you are who you say you are. If you're selling, they're also checking that the property is legally yours to sell. And, if you're buying, they're checking that the money is coming from a legitimate source.
There are many terms to learn when you're buying a home for the first time. Freehold and leasehold, which describe how a property is owned, are two you'll see a lot. But there's a third and lesser known type of ownership: commonhold.
Commonhold is new. It's an alternative to leasehold, which is the most popular way to own a flat.
Divorce enquiries at law firms traditionally surge on the first working Monday of the New Year—so much so that it has become known as Divorce Day.
More than 40 per cent of all marriages now end in divorce, reports the Office for National Statistics. And one in five married couples start thinking about separating during the post-Christmas period, according to research from leading law firm Irwin Mitchell.
But the stress of Christmas and the January blues isn't the only factor affecting the timing of divorces. Financial pressures figure increasingly in such decisions.
Seeing your parents argue can be upsetting. And it's worse if they are going through a divorce. Who will look after you? Who can you have contact with?
1. You can see each of your parents
You can have contact with both your parents, as long as it's the best thing for you. The amount of contact time you have with each parent needs to be agreed.
We all hope our relationships will last, but sometimes they don't.
Ending a relationship can be hard. And it will be harder if you have children.
Who will look after them? How much contact will you have with them?
1. You can have contact with your child
As a parent, you can have contact with your child—as long as it's the best thing for them. Try to agree with your partner and child how much contact you have and when you spend time together.
Moving house is one of the most stressful things we ever do in life.
When moving house there are legal tasks to take care of. Nearly two out of three people put moving house at the top of their stress list, recent research by energy company E.On shows.
And it's not just the prospect of broken crockery or re-directing your post. The legal side of moving (known as conveyancing) can be just as stressful.
With any house move, there are important legal tasks to complete:
Divorce enquiries at law firms traditionally surge on the first working Monday of the New Year—so much so that it has become known as Divorce Day.
More than 40 per cent of all marriages now end in divorce, reports the Office for National Statistics. And one in five married couples start thinking about separating during the post-Christmas period, according to research from leading law firm Irwin Mitchell.
But the stress of Christmas and the January blues isn't the only factor affecting the timing of divorces. Financial pressures figure increasingly in such decisions.
Safety nets are a good thing.
Just ask any circus acrobat, or a dare-devil walking a tightrope.
However safety nets can also crop up in every day life through laws and regulations that aim to keep us protected if something goes wrong.
In the legal world one of the ways that people can be protected when they use a legal service are through compensation funds managed by legal regulators.
Springtime definitely has a few ways of letting us know when it's arrived.
For some of us it might be the flowers popping up out of the ground or the trees being full of blossom and new leaves.
For others it might be smelling your neighbour's first barbecue of the year. Or maybe seeing all the joggers hitting the streets trying to get fit...
Whatever signs you look for, spring is also the season when many of us begin moving forwards with things coming up in our lives in the year ahead.
