What are your Digital Assets? What happens to your Digital Assets when you die?
Fabafterfifty: Legal
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Article by Fabafterfifty We are all aware of our material assets, and have no doubt thought about who we will leave what to in our wills- who gets what jewellery, which paintings, money, property, Great Aunt Bessie’s teapot! But what about our ‘digital’ assets? What are they and how can we protect them? I caught up with Paul Golding, founder of iCroak to ask him to clarify. What are digital assets? Digital assets are anything held in a digital format. Social assets. From a social point of view these include email accounts, facebook, twitter, google+ etc. Monetary assets. There are also monetary assets- paypal, online bank accounts, some gaming systems, all of which may well hold actual funds but where there is no paper trace, with only online records existing of the accounts. Sentimental assets . Accounts such as Flickr, Photobucket, blogs all of which may have a sentimental value...
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Helping Your Child onto the Property Ladder – Dos and Don’ts
Article by Samanatha Jago Parents are often conscious of the difficulties their children face in getting onto the property ladder. As a result many parents give their children a helping hand by loaning or giving them money towards the purchase of a property. Samantha Jago, family law solicitor at rhw solicitors in Surrey, looks at some the issues that can need to be considered if you decide to go down this route: Giving your child money towards a property Anyone wishing to assist their child in purchasing a property should give consideration to the following: • Is the money to be a loan or a gift? • How would you feel if your child cohabited and the relationship came to an end and the ex-partner sought to claim an interest in the monies you had gifted your child? • How would you feel if you fell out with your child and they then...
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Making a Will – has yours been written properly and can it be found easily?
Article by Fabafterfifty A worrying proportion of people using will writing services are being ripped off by unregulated will writers who are uninsured and offer no means of compensation. A report from the chief ombudsman for England and Wales, found that thousands of people are using unregulated will writing services, unaware that only customers of qualified lawyers may seek redress by submitting complaints to the ombudsman. Will writing is one of many legal services which need not be carried out in the care of a legal professional, with others including family law and conveyancing. The chief executive of the Law Society for England and Wales, said the lack of regulation presented unfair competition to qualified solicitors, in addition to leaving customers vulnerable and without compensation when things go wrong. Statistics have shown that more than half of Britons have not made a will, with more than three quarters of parents...
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Pensions and Divorce. What’s Your Entitlement to Ex’s Pension?
Article by Sarah Pennells of SavvyWoman.co.uk Many women who get divorced don’t realise how important the pension can be. Don’t ignore it. For most couples who go through a divorce, deciding what happens to the family home is the biggest financial decision they have to make. It’s easy to see why. Your home is a tangible object and you can work out – reasonably easily – what it’s likely to be worth. It may also have huge emotional importance. The same cannot be said for a pension. It’s not only divorcing couples who find pensions a bit of a mystery, many divorce lawyers do as well. However, it can mean you lose out and – if you do – making up the shortfall can be difficult, if not impossible. Q. In a divorce, who gets the pension? A. The answer isn’t straightforward (no surprise there!) and couples can split the...
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The Pitfalls of Living and Divorcing abroad
Article by Joanne Major Where a couple decide to live abroad, separation and divorce are probably the last things on their minds. However they are an important consideration for the following reasons:- • If neither party was born in England but one spouse wishes to file for divorce in the English courts, that spouse must live in England for at least one year prior to petitioning for divorce • A party who was born in England can petition for divorce in the English courts but they must live in England for at least 6 months prior to petitioning for divorce These “waiting periods” are likely to cause frustration to a spouse who has relocated or returned to the UK from abroad and wishes to petition for divorce as soon as possible after separation from their spouse. It is also worth remembering that if your other half remains living abroad he/she may petition...
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Getting Married Abroad? Mistakes to Avoid!
Article by Joanne Major It might soon be possible to get married on an EasyJet flight out of Newcastle, which would certainly bring a new meaning to walking down the aisle! If you can resist the romance of saying “I do” in seat 17G and can manage to wait until you get off the plane then you’ll be like many couples choosing to marry abroad. The attractions are many, from more predictable weather and avoiding the in-laws to taking advantage of lower costs and combining the ceremony with the honeymoon. But beware, it may not be entirely happily ever after. Make sure your marriage will be recognised in your own country The validity of your marriage abroad and whether or not it is recognised in your own country is important. Invalid marriages have far reaching implications for children’s legitimacy; financial considerations should the marriage break down and your own immigration...
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Can you Afford for your Child to take an Internship?
Article by Christopher Head Finishing university does not necessarily result in the end of your child being supported by the family. With the employment market being highly competitive, many graduates and school leavers are gaining work experience via the ‘internship’ route. A friend was adding up the cost to her of her daughter’s internship. It was costly! In the first instance her daughter required suitable clothes to wear as in intern in a city law firm ( a dash to Primark and a few alterations and new buttons did the trick), but there was the cost of her daily commute into town, money for coffees, lunches, and the impact to her own day as she ferried her daughter to and from the local train station. While on the one hand delighted that she was gaining good experience to place on her CV, she was also concerned about the cost (she...
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Should you sign a pre-nup?
Article by Franklin Price “MARRY ME, NOT MY MONEY”- SHOULD YOU CONSIDER A PRE-NUP? When marrying (or re-marrying) later in life, there are many aspects to consider, including the signing of a pre-nup. Growing tendency for judges to take pre-nuptial agreements into account in divorce The long awaited judgment in the Radmacher v. Granatino appeal was finally delivered by the Supreme Court on 20 October 2010, upholding the 2009 Court of Appeal decision that the pre-nuptial agreement entered into by heiress Katrin Radmacher and her husband Nicolas Granatino on their marriage was binding on the husband. However, despite this decision, pre-nuptial agreements are still not enshrined in English statute, unlike in most of the other European Union countries. Nevertheless, there has been a growing tendency in recent years for judges to take the terms of pre-nuptial agreements into account when deciding on the division of finances on divorce, particularly following... -
Divorce and Self-Help- Determining Assets
Article by Sarah Pennells A ruling by the Court of Appeal says that divorcing couples can’t help themselves to each other’s financial documents without their knowledge. What does it mean if you’re going through a breakup? If you’ve never been through a divorce or your divorce was completely amicable then the idea of one partner snooping round the computer or filing cabinet of another might seem rather odd, but ‘self help’, as it’s called, happens in many cases in England and Wales (although it’s not something that has been allowed in the same way in Scottish divorces). It’s been something of a grey area legally, but up until this court case, the general view has been that couples could take copies of documents from desk drawers or filing cabinets (except when they’ve been locked) or from computers – as long as they haven’t had to resort to hacking into the... -
Mediation and Divorce
Article by Jackie Walker For many of the women over 50 who find themselves in separation or divorce situations, the majority will have been in their relationship for many a year. It used to be that women weren’t as savvy as their partners in matters financial; the unlikelihood of earning a living which would keep them in a lifestyle they’d grown accustomed to was often a good reason for them to avoid divorce by staying in a less than comfortable relationship. By and large those days have to a greater extent gone and women have armed themselves with knowledge, expertise and earning power. Women have retained the upper hand in the realms of looking after others and putting themselves last on the list of things to be looked after. As a gender, we’re very good at making do, of accepting and not being assertive in stating our case. ...
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