4 February 2016
Severing a joint tenancy may be easier than you think
A joint tenancy is a fragile thing. That appears to be the upshot of a case in First Tier Tax Tribunal where the judge was very easily persuaded that a joint tenancy had been severed by notice – even though the notice itself had been lost.
3 February 2016
Lord Lucan’s legacy and the Presumption of Death Act 2013
Growing up in the 1980s, I remember a favourite book titled something like The World’s Greatest Unsolved Mysteries. It covered about 30 or so cold cases, gloried in pictures and was of course full of question marks. This was the first place I read about the Lord Lucan case. Nearly 30 years have passed since I was a ten year old first reading about this, but only today, on 3 February 2016, over 41 years after the peer vanished, has the law permitted Lord Lucan's son George Bingham to obtain a ‘death’ certificate for him.
14 January 2016
Protecting a same-sex survivor’s right to pension funds
Over the past decade, the UK government has legalised same-sex civil partnerships and most recently same-sex marriages. Legislation provides that same-sex couples who are married or in civil partnerships shall be treated the same as married heterosexual couples. For example, they are entitled to receive the same inheritance tax benefits, such as the spousal exemption, which exists between a married heterosexual couple.
7 January 2016
£1m Nil Rate Band – fact or fiction?
In 2007, the Conservative Party made much of a party pledge in its manifesto to increase the Nil Rate Band for inheritance tax to £1m. In July 2015, having been elected to form a majority government they announced the introduction of a Residence Nil Rate Band (RNRB). Now that more of the detail has emerged in relation to this policy announcement, the reality does not match the expectations of many and some of the details are still unclear.
30 September 2014
Intestacy rules – changes to be introduced on how estates are settled without a Will
Two-thirds of adults in England and Wales pass away each year without having made a valid Will. Some people simply don't get round to making one; others don't realise that significant events in life, for example marriage, can revoke a previously made Will. Whatever the precise reason for not leaving one, such individuals are said to die 'intestate' and their estates are governed by the ‘intestacy rules’. These determine the distribution of a deceased’s estate after any debts and liabilities, funeral expenses and costs of the administration of the estate have been paid.