Family

Articles

Update: housing

Victoria Pogge von Strandmann rounds up the year's key cases affecting the accommodation of children

Bring back authority, says senior family judge

The problems facing the family justice system are due not so much to the rise in family breakdowns as to the family courts' declining authority in the past 20 years, a senior family judge has said.

Appeal judges rebuke divorcing couple over expensive privacy row

Divorcing couples should not use the threat of publication of a court ruling as an aid to enforcement of ancillary relief decisions, the Court of Appeal has said as it overturned a judgment granting a shipping tycoon anonymity.

Strasbourg deluged by 2,500 applications from UK prisoners

The European Court of Human Rights has received 2,500 applications from convicted prisoners in the UK claiming their human rights have been breached because they are banned from voting in elections.

Update: family

Lynne Passmore reviews Radmacher and the future of prenups, document disclosure, the extravagant lifestyle of a divorcing couple, and a TOLATA claim on the significance of the parties being engaged

Who you gonna call?

The green paper post-mortem paints a bleak picture of what civil legal aid provision will look like if the MoJ gets its way. For firms intent on continuing to provide legal aid services, the proposed ten per cent fee cut will slice such a large chunk off their thin profit margins that their very existence will be in question, possibly leaving only large volume suppliers in that space. Some sectors are already predicting that practices will have to turn away half of their clients, making substantial restructures, redundancies and closures a distinct possibility. So, as firms begin to digest the details of the coalition's consultation on legal aid cuts, the worst hit offer a snapshot of what their services may look like come the revolution.

Update: commercial property

Ben Brayford and Eugene McMahon consider the recent OFT guidance on land agreements, what recent case law tells us about tenants' break clauses and a ruling on how to fend off a fixtures and fittings dispute

Out in the cold

Lawyers must step in to fight the systematic neglect of homeless people caused by cash-strapped councils, says Zia Nabi