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
Office holders who provide services under an intermediary (such as a service company consultancy agreement) and whose services relate to the office held, would fall under the IR35 regime and must be assessed accordingly.
Although these measures fall short of the level of assurance given to employees both in terms of eligibility for an immediacy of access to payments, they are a vast improvement on the support for self-employed workers that has been put in place until now. Current support includes:
- Access to business interruption loans
- Self-assessment tax payments that were due in July 2020 have been deferred until January 2021
- VAT is deferred until the next quarter
- The introduction of Time to Pay arrangements under which deferrals for HMRC payments can be agreed
- The minimum income floor for universal credit has been suspended which will allow self-employed workers to access the equivalent of Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)
- Universal credit and tax credit payments to increase by £1000 per year
An extension to the traditional business interruption insurance, “contingent business interruption insurance” often covers areas such as business interruption due to damage to property of a customer or suppliers. Nonetheless, proving loss can be problematic.
Claims for loss of use of the property may be possible as a result of forced business closure due to lockdown. Accordingly policies should be carefully reviewed to see if cover is available.
If you are separated from your child’s other parent, government guidance about self-isolation and social distancing may have an impact on the contact arrangements that are in place and give rise to disagreements about spending time with the other parent, travelling arrangements and whether the child should continue to go to school, where one of the parents is a key worker and a school place is available.
The government has issued guidance which makes it clear that where parents do not live in the same household, children under the age of 18 can be moved between their parents’ homes.
Cafcass has also issued guidance which states that, “unless there are justified medical/self-isolation issues – or some future nationally issued guidance or expectation associated with leaving the house in your area – children should maintain their usual routine of spending time with each of their parents. If there is a Child Arrangements Order in place this should be complied with unless to do so would put your child, or others, at risk”. The guidance from Cafcass be accessed here. https://mcusercontent.com/2750134472ba930f1bc0fddcd/files/987e77d6-0827-470c-9447-acc61404f465/CAFCASS_Covid19_advice_for_familes_20.pdf
Because they all have devolved governments, when there are changes to spending levels in England, the Government makes adjustments to the amount of public expenditure allotted to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In this case £60 million will be made available for all of the devolved administrations as a result of the £370 million funding allocated to charities in England. This is broken down as follows:
- £30 million for the Scottish Government
- £20 million for Welsh Government
- £10 million for the Northern Ireland Executive
There may be further allocations, dependent on the final projects funded, through the £360 million direct grant pot.