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It has been announced by the government following a Supreme Court ruling in England that soon, mixed sex couples will be able to enter into a civil partnership. The law at the time of writing this article (3 October 2018) only allows same sex couples to enter into a civil partnership. Both same sex couples and opposite sex couples can enter into a marriage (and this has now been the law for some time). If you are in a mixed sex relationship and have made wills, and decide to form a civil partnership once the law has changed, any wills made previously will be invalidated by the civil partne...

Dawn Pennell, of Capron & Helliwell solicitors, considers divorce law reform The Government has announced that, subject to consultation, it is its intention to reform the legal requirement for divorce shifting the focus from blame and recrimination to support adults better to focus on making arrangements for their own futures and for their children. At present divorcing couples need to demonstrate that their marriage has irretrievably broken down and are forced to blame each other for the marriage breakdown by saying that their spouse has behaved unreasonably, has committed adultery o...

You may well have heard of the government’s ‘Tell Us Once’ service, which is a way of, as the name suggests, informing one government department of a person’s death and that department notifies chosen government bodies; for example, HMRC or the DWP.  The advantage of this is that only one telephone call or online form needs to be submitted following a death (as far as government departments are concerned).  It is a straightforward process and next of kin or an executor of an estate can ensure government departments are notified in an efficient manner and it...

As a Solicitor specialising in the area of Private Client law, one question I am frequently asked by someone appointed as an executor of an estate is, “do I need a grant of probate?”    A grant of probate is a government-issued document allowing executor(s) appointed in a will to deal with the administration of the estate and collect estate assets.  Where there is no will, letters of administration can be issued to relatives entitled to inherit under the intestacy rules.  Both of these types of documents come under the heading of “grants of representa...