Clarke and Son News

Wednesday evening was race night at Down Grange where four of the Clarke & Son team took part in the 5k ‘Race for Life’ which raises money for Cancer Research.  Two of our team crossed the finishing line at the same time, completing the race in just under 35 minutes.

Well done to Lisa Griffin - Trainee Solicitor, Becki Williams - Secretary to Senior Partner Peter Turner, Lorraine Crockwell - Systems Administrator and Hannah Roberts - Accounts Assistant.

The Basingstoke race was one of 230 that are planned to go on throughout the summer of 2006, to find out more about visit the Race for Life website

A former employee of Abbey National, has been given permission to pursue a compensation claim in relation to events, which took place after she had left the company.

The court of appeal ruled that former employees are protected under the Employment Rights Act should they make ‘protected disclosures’.  Diana Woodward was employed as Head of Financial Institutions between 1991 and 1994 before being made redundant.

In 2003 Diana told an employment tribunal that she had been obliged to voice her concerns with relations to the way in which institutional investors funds were being handled and suffered in terms of poor references and prospects after leaving her post.

"Lord Justice Ward stated, "It simply makes no sense at all to protect the current employee but not the former employee, especially since the frequent response of the embittered, exposed employer may well be dismissal and a determination to make life impossible for the ‘nasty little sneak’ for as long thereafter as he can".

If you have any queries about similar matters regarding employment law then please contact Nick Bowers who will be glad to assist you.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have this week won a tragic case at Cambridge Crown court.

A produce connection distributor has been ordered to pay £54,000 after it admitted breaching health and safety legislation by failing to protect its employees and the public.

The late Mark Fiebeg died in a car crash after working his third consecutive 20-hour shift having not had a break for 11 days.  Coroner William Morris’ verdict was that Mr Fiebig had worked intolerable hours and had likely fallen asleep on his drive home.

The company were told that they had failed to adequately monitor the hours their staff were working and were ordered to pay £24.000 in costs and fined a further £30,000.

The Home Information Pack Regulations 2006 were laid in Parliament yesterday (14 June). They cover the meaning of HIPs, contents, assembly and authenticity, exceptions to the duty to have a pack, and enforcement of HIP duties. The regulations may be considered alongside procedural guidance.

A Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) was also published and analyses the likely impacts of HIPs and the range of options that have been considered. Required forms, including the index, sale statement, home contents form, home use form and report on a home not physically complete, have not been included in the regulations. The government would like early adopters to test them as part of their day-to-day business and feedback any comments by 29 September.

The government has also announced that energy ratings similar to consumer-friendly fridge ratings will have to be produced for every home bought and sold in England and Wales, as part of the Home Condition Report.

The Law Society’s initial response to the HIP regulations is that there are still some serious defects. Currently there is no provision within the regulations for information within the HIP or the HIP itself to be authenticated or confirmed by the seller. The Society also has concerns about the training and regulation of Home Inspectors and still believes that there should be a warning that reinforces to the buyer the risk of taking on substantial liabilities and commitments without the benefit of independent advice. In addition, the Society believes that the decision to go for multiple certification schemes will require a strong regulatory regime to ensure consistency and high standards for consumer protection. Throughout the process, the Law Society continues to voice its concerns to the government and will be issuing a more detailed response shortly

Paul Cowdery, Conveyancing Partner, comments, "there remains much uncertainty regarding the timetable for implementation of HIPS although at present the government seems determined to achieve compulsory implementation by 1 June 2007.  There are many material issues to be resolved before HIPS will be workable and effective and it may be the case that only parts of JIPS as currently proposed are ready to move forward on 1 June 2007.  The Residential Conveyancing Team at Clarke & Son is keeping fully abreast of developments to ensure we provide our clients who are selling property with a comprehensive solution whatever the final format and impact of the new regulations." 

A recent survey undertaken by the Age Partnership Group which covered 1,650 employers found that SME’s are less optimistic about the age legislation due to come into effect this October, when compared to larger employers.  The key findings showed…

•    That 45% of large employers believe that the age legislation will enable them to employ better workers as opposed to just 26% of SME’s.

•    64% of large employers expect the legislation to improve the retention rates of their staff compared to 32% of SME’s.

•    56% of large employers believe that the legislation will help increase choice in the labour market, compare to 32% of SME’s.

The new legislation is aimed at encouraging employers to ensure employment practises are not based on age but the skills and competencies of the individual.

Set to become compulsory from the 1st of June 2007, Home Information Packs (HIP’s), are going to be introduced in order to smooth over the process of home buying in the UK.

The objective is to decrease the time delay between the acceptance of an offer and the exchange of contracts. Currently, this averages eight weeks in the UK as opposed to four weeks in most other countries* during this time one in four offers fall through causing stress and frustration to those involved.  First time buyers will receive their HIPS free of charge whilst all other home buyers can expect to pay £600-£700. The HIPS includes a Home Condition Report (HCR), produced by a Home Inspector (HI), which will inform buyers of the true condition of a property.

A dry run is currently in place to pilot the HIPS scheme, which has recently been criticised by Tory MP Michael Gove.  Mr Gove pointed out that so far only 200 of the 4,000 promised HI’s have become full members of the Association of Home Information Pack Providers. Under this scheme, houses will not be able to be put to market until the HIPS is fully compiled. 

We are well aware of the implications of a Home Information Pack for selling your property, and are devising systems to ensure that we reduce the impact this will have when selling your home. If you’d like to know more about how these will affect the buying or selling of your home, then please feel free to contact either Peter, Jenny or Paul who will be pleased to help with your enquiry.

*source

A disabled shopper has issued a writ against Arcadia, one of the largest UK clothing retailer groups.  The action was taken after steps leading to a Burtons store in Stafford prevented the 39 year old from being able to enter the high street shop.

The Disabled Rights Commission (DRC) has since discovered that at least four out of ten of the group’s high street stores, which include, Topman, Topshop, Burton, Wallis, Dorothy Perkins, Miss Selfridge and Evans, have access barriers, which make it unreasonably difficult for wheelchair users to shop there.

When Joanne Holland discovered she couldn’t get into the Derby store of Burtons, staff offered to bring clothes to the entrance, however this was not felt to be an acceptable solution and legal papers have since been delivered to the groups corporate headquarters.

The DRC has criticised Arcadia for not fulfilling their legal duty of making premises as accessible as possible, an obligation, which was imposed in October 2004. A spokesperson for Arcadia stated, "The Arcadia Group does not seek to discriminate against any disabled customers, and indeed all of our customers are valued.”

Although planning for a divorce before getting married may seem far from romantic, with four in ten marriages ending in divorce more and more Britons are choosing to sign pre-nuptial agreements.  Two recent cases, Miller v Miller & McFarlane v McFarlane (both of which received substantial media attention) saw large payouts awarded to the wives in both cases.

A pre-nuptial agreement is a contract signed before marriage, which details the division of assets should that marriage end. Likewise, same sex couples can draw up pre-civil partnership agreements.

Despite pre-nuptial agreements having no legal standing, the case of Miller v Miller is certainly an example of whereby a pre-nuptial may have benefited Mr Miller’s post divorce bank balance.  The case of Heather Martin-Dye shows that divorce proceedings can work both ways, with Miss Martin-Dye being ordered to hand over £3.65 million to her ex-husband, this despite bringing 90% of the couple’s assets to the marriage.

Rather interestingly, an article in last months Independent reported on the increasing number of women using private detectives to conduct ‘prenuptial surveillance’ on their would be husbands.

If you would like to know a bit more about pre-nuptial agreements feel free to contact either of our family law experts, Bhupendra or Belinda, for friendly, confidential advice.