Bullet Point Updates
July 2015 – Execution In “Counterpart” Goes Live
Legal Writings (Counterparts and Delivery) (Scotland) Act 2015 (“the Counterparts Act”) General background Contracts may be formed in various ways. For example, in relation to the sale and purchase of a house, a succession of formal letters are normally exchanged...
June 2015 – “Don’t Take This To A ‘Greedy Lawyer!” – Home Made Wills
The words in the title appeared in the notebook of Mrs Melanie Gibson who died on 7th October 2012. Her notebook also included other wording as follows: "20/01/12 - Nearly 51? - Life is shit at this time!!! Please remember. If Anne is still alive, I want her to...
May 2015 – Property Abroad & Death Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 “BRUSSELS IV”
EU Regulations tend to be viewed as adding complexity to our lives rather than the reverse. That view may often be well-founded. But the EU Regulation concerning succession to property on death is welcome. Where people own property abroad succession matters on death...
April 2015 – Private Rented Sector (“PRS”) Tenancy Changes In The Offing
enancies (like people) come in all shapes and sizes. But when it comes to PRS tenancies they are usually either ‘assured’ tenancies or ‘short assured’ tenancies (both under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1988). That’s a bit of an over-simplification. Some PRS tenancies...
March 2015 – Joker George & “Deeds of Variation”
One of the things the Chancellor, George Osborne, said in his Budget speech on 18th March was: “I can also tell the House that we will conduct a review on the avoidance of inheritance tax through the use of deeds of variation. It will report by the autumn. We will...
February 2015 – Generous George; Surviving Spouses; & ISAs (INDIVIDUAL SAVINGS ACCOUNTS)
Some key points about the current regime for ISAs “Individual savings accounts” - generally referred to as “ISAs” - were introduced by Gordon Brown in 1999. The general idea was encouraging savings by providing that, subject to modest limits, funds invested in ISAs...
January 2015 – Continuing The Conversation
Many will be aware of the powers of attorney advertising campaign with the catch-phrase “start the conversation”. The campaign encourages people to think about granting “powers of attorney”. This Note first says something about powers of attorney generally. It then...
December 2014 – Explosive…or Not? The Programme for Government 2014-2015
The First Minister’s first Programme for Government The First Minister’s announcement of the included, in particular (emphases added): “We also plan to consult in the coming year on further legislation on Succession which will aim to radically overhaul the...
November 2014 – “GAAR or GRRR?”
George Osborne The Chancellor of the Exchequer when opening the Budget on 21st March 2012, said: “The Government will ... accept the recommendation of the Aaronson Report that a General Anti-Abuse Rule (GAAR) targeted at artificial and abusive tax avoidance schemes...
October 2014 – No More Bags of Bags
Single Use Carrier Bags Charge (Scotland) Regulations 2014 Introduction Many households will have been in the habit of amassing supermarket plastic bags with the intention of remembering to take a few for the next shop. But those good...
September 2014 – Cohabiting – Or Maybe Not?
Introduction • One of the “Notes on Common Topics” (posted in January 2012) in the Knowledge Hub section of this website is headed up “Living Together and Property Rights”. This outlines what the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 (“the Act”) does about property rights...
August 2014 – The Taxman Cometh
Our Bullet Point Update for April 2013 touched on “taxes yet to come”. In particular, it mentioned that under the Scotland Act 2012, the Scottish Parliament would take over responsibility for “Stamp Duty Land Tax” – the current UK tax on “land transactions” (most...
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