Who pays?
In general terms, if a dispute goes to court then the losing party will have to pay both their own and the winning party’s legal costs.
Ward Hadaway can offer a number of options to help your financial outlay, including acting on a fixed fee basis or a no win no fee arrangement.
We have been offering no win no fee arrangements now for over 20 years. We know that good legal advice is expensive and in most cases, if the case is strong, we can work with you to find a way of bringing the claim. Costs will be discussed with you in detail before you have to pay anything.
Related FAQs
It is not possible to challenge a Will before the person who has made it passes away. This is because a Will does not come into effect until such time as the testator has died. If, however, you do have concerns about the content of a Will, then you may wish to address these with the testator in person.
Child maintenance is a payment made by a parent with whom the child does not live with (or with whom the child lives with less often) to the parent who the child usually lives with.
Parents are encouraged to make their own arrangement, agreeing how much child maintenance ought to be paid and then arranging the payments directly. However if a parent refuses to pay, the first port of call is often the Child Maintenance Service (CMS).
As a starting point, it provides a free “no obligation” calculator on its website allowing you to calculate for yourself how much child maintenance you ought to be receiving. If you do not have enough information to use the calculator, you can ask the CMS to carry out a formal assessment. There is a charge for this service but the CMS can access your ex-partner’s tax records to see how much they earn to produce an accurate assessment.
Once you have a calculation, you can see whether your ex-partner will voluntarily agree to pay this amount. If they still refuse, you can use the “collect and pay” service through the CMS in which the CMS will collect the child maintenance payment from your ex and pay it to you. There is however a cost for using this service so it is best to try arranging it yourself if possible.
The only potential negatives are the potential for MHFAs to become overloaded, or for MHFAs to overstep the boundaries of their role. Both would be avoided if a suitable framework is in place around them, and if adequate ongoing support and training is provided.
With the loss of face-to-face meetings in the current situation, video conferencing has taken centre stage. But how do you do that in a compliant way? Here are some of the main high-level data protection issues to consider when selecting and implementing a new third party provider’s video conferencing system.
- Make sure you do your due diligence on the security measures offered by the provider. Clearly you can’t visit them, so look at the information offered publicly by the provider and read good quality, reliable, third party sources and ask the provider questions directly. Also ask any other organisations you know that use the provider. Document all this.
- If personal information is being sent outside of the UK/European Economic Area, make sure that transfer complies with GDPR. If it’s a US provider, is it registered in the EU-US Privacy Shield list or does it offer a model clause contract (you’re likely to need the 2010 version)? Or is the service provided from a country whose data protection laws offer equivalent protection to those in Europe? Look at the support service as well as the hosting. Document this.
- Make sure you put a compliant processor agreement in place. The provider should offer one as part of the contract terms. Check it meets GDPR requirements.
- You’re likely to need to update your privacy notice, particularly if you’re going to record calls. Provide participants with a short message and link to the privacy notice in the meeting invite and on any registration page.
- Create or update other GDPR-mandated documentation – for example, depending on your use, you may need a legitimate interests assessment and to update your record of processing.
- Finally, configure and use the system in a secure and compliant way. Look at the settings/options carefully and think through the security and compliance implications of each. That could include deciding who in the meeting can share their screen; whether or not you use passwords for participants; whether or not to record, and if you’re going to record, where to store the recording. Document your decisions and the reasons for them.
The ICO has said it understands that resources, whether they are finances or people, might be diverted away from usual compliance work during the pandemic. However the last thing you need at the moment is to create a bigger problem than the one you are trying to solve. So do the best you can, ask for help from one of our specialists if you need it, and keep the whole thing under review.
On 16 April 2020, Ian Hulme, the ICO’s Director of Assurance, posted a blog for business owners, employers and managers about how to safely roll out the latest video conferencing technology.
On 21 April 2020, the NCSC published security guidance for organisations on choosing, configuring and deploying video conferencing services.
Yes – there should be a framework in place to ensure that MHFAs are fully supported themselves and so that individuals are supported beyond the support the MHFAs provide.