Historically, ground rent was always a peppercorn, zero or nominal rent charged by freeholders (or landlords) as token consideration in order to form a binding contract.

There is no generally accepted definition of overage. Rather, it is a term used to describe a situation where a seller, in certain circumstances, is entitled to share in an increase in the value of land which is realised post completion of the sale.

Using mediation to deal with and resolve harassment and discrimination issues in the workplace can be very cost-effective for employers who would otherwise have to deal with work related stress, absences, depression and claims of disability discrimination.

A prenuptial agreement can provide clarity and certainty by setting out how you and your spouse will share the assets you have if you were to divorce, whilst also protecting certain categories of assets from being distributed between you.

With the focus in the construction industry and surrounding supply chain on reducing carbon emissions, driving to net zero carbon, and related building safety improvements, it is good to see that the authors of the NEC Contract have taken an important step towards facilitating sustainability in a contractual sense.

'Hope value' was originally introduced to ensure that landowners would receive existing use value (EUV) of their land, plus a premium to reflect future lost earnings. Many now argue that such payments are anachronistic and responsible for the artificial inflation of land prices, so the the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 (LURA) now gives the Secretary of State the ability to remove, or cap, hope value from CPO-related compensation payments.

Hybrid working has now become a common approach, particularly in office-based environments. But what is hybrid working, and how should employers go about implementing it?

As the beginning of the new tax year approached, HMRC was busy. To maximise recoveries to help to pay the national debt, its use of winding-up petitions has been increasing each quarter, resulting in a steady rise in the number of compulsory liquidations of companies. Many tax claims (called Regulation 80 determinations) were also issued before their potential expiry at the end of the tax year. And, to fulfil its announced intention to conclude as many tax avoidance matters relating to loan charges as possible before the end of March 2023, many more taxpayers who HMRC considers to be subject to the loan charge received decisions on what they owe.

With a number of major legal and practical changes to the construction industry recently, together with the recent challenges faced by the wider community generally, Michael Hiscock has been looking forward to receiving the JCT 2024 contracts for some time to see how these issues were addressed.

If the wishes of the deceased have, genuinely, not been included within a will there may be a claim for the will to be amended. Legally, this is often referred to as being a claim for ‘rectification’.