Who pays?
If a dispute goes to court then the losing party will have to pay both their own and the winning parties’ legal costs. In other words, if you did not succeed with your claim, you would have to pay the legal costs incurred by the beneficiaries of the estate. However, if your claim succeeds, the beneficiaries of the estate are likely to have to pay your legal costs, as well as any financial provision which is ordered by the court to come from the estate.
Ward Hadaway can offer a number of options to help to minimise 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
Yes. The Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants Act) 1975 (more commonly known simply as the “1975 Act”) allows certain categories of people to apply to the court for an order for what is known as “reasonable financial provision” in the event that they are either not provided for, or not provided for sufficiently, within a testator’s Will.
Civil Court listing priorities, last updated by HMCTS on 24 April 2020, categorise the Court’s work into the following:
Priority 1 – work that must be done: this includes any applications in cases listed for trial in the next 3 months, any applications where there is a substantial hearing listed in the next month, all multi-track hearings where parties agree that it is urgent (subject to triage).
Priority 2 – work that could be done: Infant and Protected Party approvals, Applications for interim payments in multi-track / personal injury / clinical negligence cases, Applications to set aside Judgment in default, Preliminary Assessment of costs.
The full guidance can be found at:
The government introduced The Working Time (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 to amend the Working Time Regulations 1998 to allow for the change.
On 18 April 2020, it was announced that an exception to the current stay in possession proceedings and ban on all evictions has been made to allow possession orders to be made against trespassers.
This means land owners can take action to remove unauthorised persons occupying their land. Trespassers include: squatters; travellers; failed successors of secure tenancies; and licensees whose licences have been terminated.
Further, the automatic stay to possession proceedings currently imposed no longer applies to applications for interim possession orders meaning any persons found to be “squatting” on land without permission may again be subject to an order requiring them to leave your premises within 24 hours of service of that order.
As their employer, you have an overriding duty to provide a safe system of work. The Trust would not be able to run a defence to say that an employee “waived their rights” and chose to continue to work. Provided the decision around restricting duties has been carefully thought out, a full risk assessment undertaken and the employee has been truly consulted about the impact on them, then the decision taken will be a reasonable management instruction. Failing to follow that reasonable management instruction could amount to a disciplinary offence.