How long do I have to bring a claim?

As with a Will, your solicitor can take instructions by telephone, Skype or a similar tool. Your solicitor can then post or email the documentation to you. As with Wills, your signature and those of your proposed Attorneys will need to be witnessed, but in this case only by one other person. However, there are specific requirements as to who can witness your signature. The witness must be aged 18 or older and cannot be your Attorney but they can be your Certificate Provider.

Your Certificate Provider must either be someone you have known personally for at least two years or an appropriate professional. However, they must not be your Attorney and they must not be a member of your family or the partner, boyfriend or girlfriend of a member of your family or a business partner or employee of yours.

Also, if you are living in a care home, the Certificate Provider cannot be the owner, manager, director or employee of the home you live in.

Given the current restrictions on movement, if you have regular medical checks you could ask your GP or another medical professional to witness your signature and act as your Certificate Provider when you go to see them or they come to you. Alternatively, if someone you have known for two years or more is dropping off essentials, they could act as a witness and Certificate Provider remembering to retain the necessary distance and protective measures.

Concerning your Attorney(s) you cannot act as their witness. Otherwise, anyone aged 18 or older can act as their witness, including the other Attorney. Ideally, a witness to your or your Attorney’s signatures should not be a family member for the sake of impartiality and to avoid disputes. If necessary they can be.

Divorce is the main way to legally recognise that a marriage has come to an end. It allows the court to separate a couple’s finances and once granted, the parties are legally separate and able to re-marry again in the future.

Annulments are sometimes an option. Whereas divorce ends a marriage, annulments declare the marriage was not valid in the first place. The grounds for seeking an annulment are very fact specific (such as a lack of consent to marriage) but if it is granted, the parties are separated and it is as if they were never married. The court can however make financial awards similar to those in divorce proceedings after an annulment.

Sometimes couples may not wish to divorce but want legal recognition that they have separated. In such circumstances, they may consider a Judicial Separation. This grants the court powers to make some financial orders similar to those it can make on a divorce (such as spousal maintenance) but not all orders (such as pension sharing). With a Judicial Separation, the parties remain married so they cannot remarry and either party may seek a divorce at a later date.

A final option is to separate but not obtain a divorce. The court will not make any awards so the parties remain married but the parties can enter into a separation agreement regulating their finances. However, if either party seeks a divorce in the future, the court is not bound by the separation agreement and may decide to regulate the couple’s finances in a different way than was previously agreed.

It is almost impossible to completely guard against the risks associated with contractor insolvency, but there are some steps which can assist in mitigating and managing the risks involved.   To be in the best possible position, it is worth considering the following at the outset of any project:

• Check the contractor’s financial position – particularly the specific company which will enter into the building contract, as the employer’s rights will be against this company rather than the business as a whole
• Take legal advice to ensure that the building contract is properly drafted with appropriate provisions to deal with an insolvency event
• Consider requiring a performance bond and/or parent company guarantee (each serve slightly different purposes)
• Obtain collateral warranties from the consultants and sub-contractors involved, so that there are contractual rights against other parties if the contractor is no longer able to meet claims
• Consider requiring retention bonds, advance payment bonds or vesting certificates if necessary
• Project bank accounts and escrow accounts can also provide some further assurances for the parties involved

This scheme is specifically aimed at creating jobs for 18-24 year olds who are on Universal Credit and considered most at risk of unemployment because of the economic downturn. The Government has announced that it will pay young people’s wages (equivalent to 100% the National Minimum Wage plus the associated National Insurance contributions and employer minimum automatic enrolment contributions) for up to 6 months, and that this will amount to a grant worth approximately £6,500 per young person.

The jobs that are created must provide a minimum of 25 hours per week and be paid at a minimum of the National Minimum Wage The Chancellor announced that will be no cap on the number of jobs that will be funded under the Kickstart scheme.

Those individuals who are already exempt from the existing face covering obligations, will continue to be exempt from the new rules. These include:

• Those unable to put on or wear a face covering because of a physical or mental illness or disability
• People for whom wearing or removing a face covering will cause severe distress
• Anyone assisting someone who relies on lip reading to communicate