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Monthly Archives: July 2012

G4S negligence story unlikely to go away

By Professional Negligence Department | Published: Jul 31,2012

Who would have thought that the Olympics would become a big potential professional negligence story before an athlete had even so much as twitched a muscle in anticipation of the starting pistol?

The G4S security scandal, despite the save-face PR offensive of the company’s management staff, is fast descending into farce, with the government giving every indication that it will seek to claim money back from the firm – a position which would appear to allow the possibility of a professional negligence claim .

However, sports minister Hugh Robertson remains hopeful that recourse to professional negligence lawyers and litigation can be avoided. “We are working through that at the moment, but all the penalty clauses that are in the contract will be activated,” he said.

It does, certainly at the surface level, seem strange that that the security company should be keeping its £57 million fee when thousands of soldiers have been forced to step into the breach caused by the firm’s negligence, costing the government a great deal of money, as well as loss of kudos.

At the moment though, it must be said that G4S has promised to reimburse the full cost of providing the extra troops.

As is so often the case with these large scale events, it is only when the accountants do their financial post mortems that it will become clear whether there might be any grounds for claims for professional negligence compensation.

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Family law appeal judge says Muslim husband must still pay maintenance

By Family Department | Published: Jul 30,2012

Family law firms in Brighton and London, including Healys LLP, will be interested in the decision made by the Court of Appeal in the case of a Muslim husband who stopped paying maintenance payments to his former wife.

The doctor’s divorce financial settlement claim had resulted in a ruling which meant he would have to pay his wife maintenance of £60,000 in respect of her contribution to the marriage and the bringing up of the couple’s two children.

However, the consultant rheumatologist stopped paying maintenance citing that he felt his former wife did not need his financial help as she had inherited £250,000 from her father

In traditional Muslim ideology it is the families of divorced women who are often expected to offer financial support to wives who separate from their husbands and Sharia tradition holds that when a dowry is paid to the bride by the groom she will not have rights to marital property.

However, in court, Lord Justice Ward said, “The rule in this country is that you share and the starting point is equal division.”

He added that a belief that English family law rulings were “illegitimate or illegal according to Islamic culture” was no defence against a court’s divorce ruling.

The husband has been ordered to resume paying maintenance and to pay arrears of £40,000 in a lump sum payment.

Healys’ family law firms in Brighton and London can help you in a divorce financial settlement claim. To find out more, please click here.

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Husband caused damage to house after wife asked for divorce

By Family Department | Published: Jul 27,2012

Brighton divorce solicitors might feel proud of their counterparts in Staffordshire after they dealt with a particularly difficult divorce case in September 2011, the repercussions of which have only recently been brought to a close at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court this week.

One half of a couple, who were married for 14 years and had a son together, did not come to terms with the break-up as well as may have been hoped.

When the wife decided that she no longer enjoyed her husband’s company, and had grown apart from him, she contacted solicitors specialising in divorce to help her with the legal process.

However, when it came to telling her husband that she wanted to leave him, he refused to accept what he was hearing and took his anger out on the £130,000 house they had shared.

Pouring paint on the front door, cutting up furniture, and writing ‘My ½’on the sofa, bathroom tiles, mirrors, and various other items around their home, he reportedly managed to cause £5,184 worth of damage.

As a result, after speaking with divorce solicitors, she then had to contact criminal damage lawyers too.

This week the man admitted to causing criminal damage and was sentenced to a two year supervision order.

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Professional negligence claims against lawyers fell in 2011

By Professional Negligence Department | Published: Jul 26,2012

Perhaps it’s a reflection of enhanced standards in legal and litigation services or maybe it’s a harbinger of things to come under impending changes to the Legal Services Act – whatever the case the most recent statistics from the Judicial and Court Statistics Report for 2011 reveal a drop in the number of professional negligence claims against lawyers and solicitors.

In fact, the news is not as positive as it would first seem. Between 2007 and 2009 there was a massive swell in the numbers of professional negligence claims against lawyers and solicitors, with the number peaking at 210 claims in 2009, up from 80 to 2008.

So perhaps the fact that there were 125 such claims in 2011 can be seen as a sign of progress or as a sign that things are returning to normal, or, indeed, that there are high level of cases pending – as many know the legal system can sometimes be a slow moving beast so it can take some time for litigation to register in the official statistics.

Furthermore, with the no-win, no-fee system due to be abandoned under proposals outlined in the Lord Jackson report, there is every likelihood that professional negligence claims against lawyers and solicitors will reach record levels in 2012. With the squeeze being put on access to justice this could be the year in which there is a rush to litigate.

Economic factors undoubtedly play a part too. Anna Crew, senior associate in CMS Cameron McKenna’s insurance and reinsurance group, comments, “Despite the recent dip, the level of professional negligence claims post-2007 has remained considerably higher than figures for the preceding years. So, although litigation may have generally reduced, there remains a greater willingness to sue the lawyer in troubled times.”

It will be interesting to see how things play out, but it is likely that it will be some time before we know with any certainty.

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Property buyers are considering purchasing a home in Spain

By Residential Department | Published: Jul 24,2012

Falling numbers or mortgage approvals and generalised depressions in the property market in Britain has meant that many potential buyers have chosen to delay any residential conveyancing until the market has improved.

However, reports have revealed that many Britons are taking advantage of low house prices in Spain and seeking a bargain property overseas. Spain is currently struggling with banking and economic problems which has made it difficult for residents to sell their homes.

Overseas mortgage specialist Conti has reported a 33% increase in Spanish mortgage enquiries from Britons over May and June 2012 compared to the monthly averages for previous months.

Spanish properties have suffered their worst price slump over the last year since 2007, with monthly price index appraisal company Tinsa revealing that house prices are down by 10.8% year-on-year.

Claire Nessling, director at Conti, said, “The Spanish market has reached a low point, so buyers are using it as an opportunity to shop for a bargain.”

She added that Spain not only offers historically low interest rates and the growing strength of the pound against the euro, but it also offers better weather than the UK – these factors may be encouraging people to enlist the help of a conveyancing solicitor to buy a Spanish home.

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Keeping a keen eye on online data

By Professional Negligence Department | Published: Jul 19,2012

Many professional negligence solicitors believe that we have so far seen only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to claims relating to financial loss sustained as a result of the online negligence of certain professionals.

Only recently, security experts urged internet users to be vigilant and to change their passwords following a breach of Yahoo user names and passwords. Luckily (or not so luckily for anyone who was among the five percent) only five percent of the passwords obtained by hackers were valid.

But was Yahoo negligent in its protection of user data? Although there is no word yet of any professional negligence solicitors being called into the breach (if you’ll excuse the pun) some online security experts have already branded the internet giant as negligent.

“When that data is out there, it really is incumbent upon them [Yahoo] to protect it wherever it might be and that wasn’t being done,” commented Dr. Clifford Neuman, director of the USC Center for Computer Systems Security.

Interestingly, for professional negligence solicitors, Dr. Neuman said that there was some element of forseeability to the data breach. “The particular kind of attack that was exploited here is one that has been known for many years. We see it coming up again and again,” he said.

In the wider picture it is almost irrelevant whether any negligence claims follow this breach – what is interesting is how the online picture will develop over the coming years.

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Haunted homes for sale in Hong Kong

By Residential Department | Published: Jul 18,2012

A recent article on The Telegraph’s website stated that in Hong Kong people who are not superstitious could purchase homes at discounts of up to 40%.

Although a relatively rare occurrence, UK house purchase solicitors do occasionally work for buyers of apparently haunted properties. However, in China conveyancing solicitors are much less likely to ever be contacted by people wishing to buy a haunted home (hongza).

In China, house buyers are reluctant to take on a property believed to be inhabited by ghosts, or where the previous tenant had suffered an unnatural death, because they consider that whatever bad luck befell the unfortunate preceding householder will be passed on to the new resident.

A spokesperson for a property website states, “Hong Kong people are sensitive to ghosts and bad luck. They believe in feng shui. If something bad happened in a home, people won’t take it.

“But Hong Kong is small and very expensive so if a good discount comes, there are others ready to make the investment.”

There are reportedly some Hong Kong investors who purchase these unwanted homes and rent them out to foreigners who do not hold the same superstitious beliefs as the Chinese residents.

However, anyone who has been searching for a property at a reduced price may not have to look as far as Hong Kong as, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, even in the UK “unusual happenings, such as hauntings or reported crimes, can dramatically affect the saleability of a property”.

For anyone who is not worried by a home’s potentially sinister past, there may be the perfect house on the market, available at a spookily low price.

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Ring out the old, ring in the divorce!

By Family Department | Published: Jul 16,2012

An article in the BBC news magazine entitled “When does the ring come off?”, following Katie Holmes almost instantaneous removal of her wedding ring once she had filed for divorce from actor-husband Tom Cruise, has generated a lot of interest.

Many readers commented on their own experiences of decision making about when to remove a wedding ring and what to do with it.

Of course, divorce solicitors probably have many stories to tell of clients’ own deliberations about the subject and, it appears, it is not so simple as just waiting for the decree absolute to come through.

According to relationship expert Judy James, although celebrities appear to “play games with the ring” being that they will be photographed, very publically, without it to send firm messages about the status of their marriage, and perhaps, more subtly, about their availability, many people find the taking off of the wedding ring something which is steeped in symbolism.

James suggests that the ring has “deep historical symbolism… of male ownership” and, as such, a man is likely to be “really hurt” if his wife takes the ring off.

Some people decide to keep a ring on as they are not prepared to discuss the relationship breakdown, while others seem to make very symbolic gestures with their wedding jewellery.

Of the comments published, a novel use for former-wedding rings was to turn them into another object. One lady wrote that she got a friend to turn her ring into a tiny pig and another divorcee had his ring turned into a witch’s hat – they were then used as Monopoly counters.

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Living in a flood-prone area can make selling a home difficult

By Residential Department | Published: Jul 11,2012

As well as putting a dampener on many people’s summer plans, the large amount of rainfall the UK has suffered, and the flooding which has occurred as a result, could affect those who are attempting to sell their homes.

People all over the country have been affected by rising water levels from rivers and lakes, and blocked drainage systems struggling to shift water from the streets.

Brighton has fared no differently, with many properties suffering water damage, and fire and rescue teams having to pump sewage from one property while quickly isolating the electrics in many others.

If any of those house owners have their homes on the market, although dealing with the legal side of selling a property will be easy, with help from a Brighton solicitor, house sale possibilities will be low.

According to the Environment Agency more than five million people in England and Wales alone live and work in properties which are at risk of flooding from rivers or the sea – and this figure doesn’t even take into account the flood risk from drains.

People who live in high flood-risk areas are likely to see a 15% fall in house prices during flooding, and prices may remain low if home owners are unable to get their property insured, putting potential buyers off.

House buyers are advised to always ask their conveyancing solicitor to source a detailed flood report and seek insurance quotes early in the purchase process, to make sure they can get cover.

Worryingly, scientists believe that the extreme weather experienced in the last few months will only get worse in the future due to climate change, and could lead to the risk of flooding in England increasing four-fold by the year 2035.

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Banking professional negligence and Libor

By Professional Negligence Department | Published: Jul 11,2012

The fallout from the Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) lending rate scandal is likely to continue for months if not years, with some form of banking professional negligence litigation a distinct possibility.

This is not unrealistic but simply the likelihood when there is so much at stake and, potentially, so many aggrieved parties. For example, recent scandals involving Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Lehman Brothers all gave rise to some form of banking professional negligence claims – it just remains to be seen how much of an impact the Libor scandal has had and for affected parties to quantify their loss.

It is hard to see how those who have lost out will be content without compensation, particularly with criminal prosecutions looking increasingly likely. Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Blair also called for police inquiries. “Anybody, the youngest detective, would say this is conspiracy to defraud. It can mean nothing else. And therefore someone has to launch a criminal inquiry into this behaviour,” he said.

Business Secretary Vince Cable, meanwhile, said he sympathised with the view that it is unfair that “people are thrown into jail for petty theft and these guys [bankers] just walk away having perpetrated what looks like conspiracy.”

However, it remains too soon to say whether mortgage holders will be able to instruct professional negligence solicitors to claim banking professional negligence compensation. One thing is certain though – if the Libor has been manipulated to make rates higher it is very likely that new tracker mortgages have been charged at artificially high prices. Furthermore, savers may also have lost out on interest if banks have been manipulating interest rates illegally and for the purpose of profit.

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