The equal sharing principle applies in the vast majority of divorce cases nowadays – even where the sums of money involved are truly enormous. In one High Court case exactly on point, a billionaire oil and gas trader was ordered…
When a lease come to an end, the 'dilapidations clause' makes the tenant liable to restore the let premises to the same state they were in when the tenant first occupied them. It is established law that when a…
It may come as a surprise to some property owners that estate agency fees are often payable regardless of whether a buyer is introduced by the agency concerned. A property investor found that out the hard way after the…
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) are obliged to keep individuals’ tax affairs secret - but confidentiality generally does not survive an appeal. Exactly that happened in one case in which well-known actor Martin Clunes sought to set off the cost…
Valuing shares is notoriously difficult and is generally a matter of taking a reasonable view of what a hypothetical buyer might pay. That was the approach taken by the Court of Appeal in putting a price on a minority shareholding…
On Saturday 22nd October DFA Law's Facilities Manager Innes Macaulay, his wife Dawn and daughter Kiri, fly to India to visit a number of projects set up to help some of the displaced and most disadvantaged people in India. The Macaulays will visit…
As any property professional will know, negotiations can be tense and it is common for various draft agreements to fly between parties without any final deal in fact having been reached. Exactly that happened in one case involving the proposed…
Letters of intent are widely used in the building trade, because it is normal for both developer and contractor to wish to make progress on a building project without having to wait until the formal contractual arrangements have been fully…
Family members who run businesses together should take careful note of a High Court case in which a husband and wife’s commingling of personal and company funds and failure to keep proper records landed them in legal hot water. The…
When purchasing a company’s assets, professional advice and careful drafting are needed to avoid subsequent dispute about what exactly has been bought. In one case, a High Court resolution was required after two companies both claimed to have acquired another’s…