Tenant awarded £18,000 rent refund after wall collapses
January 7th 2019By Mark Aspin, Director and Head of Dispute Resolution A tenant has been awarded a refund of more than £18,000 after a wall collapsed at the property he was renting. The court heard that the tenant had signed a two-year lease on a house with no break clause. He paid all the £34,000 rent in advance. After moving in, the tenant contacted the letting agent to draw attention to the…
Homeowners have covenant modified to allow barn conversion
January 2nd 2019By Jonathan Carroll Director and Head of Agriculture A married couple have succeeded in having a restrictive covenant modified to allow them to build more than one house on part of their land. The couple had bought the land together with a farmhouse in 2001 for £600,000 from a college. They then obtained planning permission allowing them to convert two outbuildings, the “Modern Barn” and the “Old Barn”, into a single…
Woman ‘side-lined’ during maternity leave wins discrimination claim
December 11th 2018Joanne Stronach, Head of Employment Law & HR considers the Employment Tribunal case of Ms J Rajput v Commerzbank AG (2018). A compliance officer with an international bank who was “side-lined” after having a baby has won her claims of maternity and sex discrimination. Jagruti Rajput joined Commerzbank AG in London as a senior compliance advisor in 2012. By 2015 she was being considered as a possible candidate for head of…
Investors compensated as if failed project had not happened
December 7th 2018Mark Aspin Director and Head of Dispute Resolution The High Court has ruled that investors who had been persuaded to place money in a joint venture as a result of deceit should be compensated as if the failed project had not happened. The investment had been undertaken by Kea Investments Ltd, which placed £129m in a joint venture vehicle. The court ruled that as Kea had been induced to make the…
Director held personally responsible for company’s unpaid invoice
November 19th 2018By Peter Stafford , Cartmell Shepherd’s Managing Director A director has been held personally liable to pay the full market value of products that had been supplied to her company shortly before it went into liquidation. The claim against the director arose from her company’s failure to pay for a cargo of sunflower oil sold to it by a supplier in October 2012. The supplier argued that it had entered into…
Chancellor increases Living and Minimum wage rates
November 8th 2018Scott Garson Practice Manager Chancellor Philip Hammond has announced increases to the minimum wage rates. During his Budget speech, Mr Hammond said the National Living Wage will rise by 4.9%, from £7.83 to £8.21 from next April. This amounts to a £690 annual pay increase for a full-time worker. These are the increases recommended by the Low Pay Commission (LPC) and accepted in full by the government. They will come into…
Landlord stops leaseholder letting out flat on Airbnb
November 5th 2018Elizabeth Crouch Senior Solicitor A landlord has succeeded in legal action to prevent a leaseholder letting out his flat on short-term lets using websites such as Airbnb. The landlord was the freeholder of a building which had been converted into flats. Many of the flats had been sub-let by the leaseholders on assured shorthold tenancies, usually for a minimum of six months. One of the tenants started using his flat…
Call for evidence to combat late payments to small businesses
November 2nd 2018Mark Aspin, Director and Head of Dispute Resolution The government is urging businesses to highlight their experiences of late payment and put forward ideas to ensure earlier settlement, especially by large companies. One in four UK businesses say that late payments are a threat to their survival. Research by the Federation of Small Businesses suggests that prompt payments could add £2.5 billion to the UK economy and keep an extra…
High five for legal firm after it is named in national top 100 list!
October 12th 2018A LEGAL business has been named in an influential top 100 list for the fifth consecutive year. Cartmell Shepherd is the only law firm in Cumbria to make the national Lex 100, which is based on reviews submitted by trainees. The business is ‘friendly, outgoing and goes out of its way to help people,’ according to the list publishers. The Lex verdict read: “Based in Cumbria and Northumberland, Cartmell Shepherd…
Simplified rules on buying or extending your leasehold home
October 5th 2018By Laura Bright Solicitor If you own a leasehold property and want to extend the length of the lease, or buy the property, the procedure (known as ‘enfranchisement’) is currently a complicated, costly and time consuming one. Radical reforms to provide a better deal for leaseholders who want to purchase the freehold or to extend the lease of their home have been put forward by the Law Commission. The proposals…
