Clarke and Son News

Changes to maternity law introduced earlier this month in the UK could see employers lumbered with huge costs in forking out for unforeseen pension payments for women on maternity leave.

Employment experts have warned that under amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) introduced on 6 April, employers could now be liable for pension contributions for as long as a female employee takes maternity leave - up to a year in some cases.

The legislation states that an employer only needs to pay pension contributions for a maximum of 39 weeks. But Kate Gater, partner at law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner, warned that even employees who are not eligible for statutory maternity pay because they have insufficient service could now be entitled to extended pension payments.

Read more at Personnel Today.

Clarke & Son LLP’s chosen charity for 2007/08 was the Samantha Dixon Brain Tumour Trust.

We raised an impressive £1,090.30 for the Yateley based charity through a number of in-house fundraising events including staff lunches, Christmas party raffle, skittles evenings, Easter egg mystery prize and a Wednesday Lottery Bonus Ball draw.

The firm was grateful for donations from other local companies for their Christmas raffle including Basingstoke Rugby Club, The Red Lion and Halpern PR.

Maria Birchall, Fundraising Manager for Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust (SDBTT) says

We were very happy to have been chosen as Clarke & Son’s Charity of the Year. The money raised will go towards much needed research and patient support. It is a sad fact that more children and people under 40 die from a brain tumour than any other cancer. Support from local businesses like Clarke & Son helps SDBTT raise awareness and funds for research.

Next year’s charity is Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, for which the company hope to raise even more cash!

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has released the results of its December 2007 survey of UK-based websites which sell goods directly to customers and has concluded that there is widespread failure to comply with the laws relating to selling via the Internet.

The OFT, working with trading standards officers, looked at 530 popular websites. The main findings were:

• 14 per cent of sites appeared not to comply with the law because they either provided no physical address or provided only a PO Box number;
• 15 per cent of sites appeared not to comply with the requirement to give shoppers information on their right to cancel within seven working days;
• 31 per cent of the sites appeared not to comply with the requirement on cancellation to refund the full cost of the goods. Of these, 56 per cent excluded the cost of original delivery from refunds; and
• 40 per cent of sites did not indicate when the price was first shown that compulsory additional charges would be added, but subsequently included such charges at checkout.

Says Peter Turner of Clarke & Son LLP:

Despite the Distance Selling Regulations having been in force since 2000, there is widespread non-compliance with various aspects of the law in this area as there is also with the laws on disability discrimination, under which such websites must be ‘disability friendly’.

For further information, please contact Peter Turner at Clarke & Son in Basingstoke.

Paul Cowdery, Head of Conveyancing says:

The National press has been full of articles regarding the difficulties in the housing market and particularly the problem of securing a mortgage. Mike Dean at Mortgage Monkey has recently written to us and the message is to plan ahead.

You may well have seen press coverage over the past couple of months concerning the “credit crunch”; this is now seriously affecting even ‘good quality’ mortgage applications.

There is a serious lack of funds from many lenders which has resulted in either their withdrawal from the market in full eg First Direct pulling out of the market today. The few remaining lenders are making daily amendments to their criteria, making it harder and harder to borrow.

This is not just affecting new loans but is now seriously impacting on those who are re-mortgaging.

We expect this situation to get worst before it gets better; we therefore expect further restrictions and a significant lack of supply of funds in the near future.

With this in mind if your existing mortgage is due for renewal in the next 6 months it would be worth reviewing your options now.