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Direct access Barrister | Criminal, Motoring & Regulatory Law
Tenants’ Rights: Get Advice & Stop Problems Before They Start
Want to know a trade secret? The best way to avoid contract disputes is to have a clear contract. Tip number two is that tenancy agreements can be written to favour a landlord or a tenant. Tenancy agreements are contracts. Did you negotiate yours - or did you just...
Tenants’ Rights: Get Advice (2)
As an update to Tenants' Rights: Get Advice, if you are having problems with your landlord and want to try to solve your dispute without a lawyer, you might find the following Legal Action Group books helpful: Repairs Tenants' Rights by Jan Luba QC, Deirdre Forster...
Tenants’ Rights: Get Advice
When do you need to bring a lawyer in to fight your corner? Tenants generally don’t come to a direct access barrister for advice until the day before they are due to see their landlord in court. Many people think that as their tenancy agreement is written in English,...
This isn’t my first time
First time Litigants in Person tend to underestimate the time and emotional energy involved in court proceedings. That's why they say in one breath, "Hopefully, they'll just pay. I don't have time for this BS" and in another, "We're going to court". Consider that this...
Thanks for telling us you have Cancer: You’re Sacked
I'm thinking it might be time to run a, "Despicable You" series. The letter is from an employer in America who appears to have made his employee of 12 years redundant on his learning of her cancer diagnosis. Imagine: Your whole world's just been turned upside down....
Everything you wanted to know about tenancy deposits but were afraid to ask
The House of Commons Library has published its Standard Note SN/SP/2121 Tenants' Deposits (England & Wales). This document sets out the current state of play as at today's date.
s172 Defence & Applying the Right Cases
Day 1 of my pupillage was spent at City of London Magistrates Court observing how to prosecute a “simple” Traffic list. I had zero understanding what s172 was – and mystified by the explanation that it was simply “reading”. S172s are so much more than the Prosecution...
Radio Interference: Breath Machine Loophole or Mountain to Climb?
Is "radio interference" a defence to an Intoximeter (evidential breath machine) reading? For anyone looking for Home Office Circular 39/1989 - you won't find it on a government website and you won't even find it in the online National Archives - because the online...
Housing Law Free Legal Advice Pop Up at Newington Green Unitarian Church
... unfortunately will not be running this evening. I hope to bring back the Housing advice pop up at the Newington Green Unitarian Church in August. In the meantime, the Toynbee Hall has a Housing advice evening on Thursdays from 7 to 9 pm. They are located at 28...
Despicable you: Landlords, stop threatening fraud victims with s144 LASPO
A young family signed a tenancy agreement, paid a deposit and the first month’s rent – all into a letting agent’s bank account. A month or so later, a representative of the landlord stopped by the flat and was surprised to see the family living there. The family were...
