Estate meaning

Introduction to freezing injunctions and scope of this checklist A freezing injunction (also known as a freezing order) is a temporary court order that prevents a respondent from disposing of or transferring its assets out of the relevant jurisdiction—namely England and Wales—or, in the case of a worldwide freezing order (WFO), from moving them anywhere in the world. The court’s principal aim in granting such relief is to preserve the respondent’s assets so that, if the applicant later obtains judgment against the respondent, there will be assets available for recovery by the applicant and, if necessary, enforcement action. This Checklist explains how to make an application for a freezing injunction where claims are contemplated or already underway in a corporate or personal insolvency context. As the precise circumstances of each matter must be assessed, this Checklist does not claim to be exhaustive; rather, it provides an overview of the key considerations at each stage when seeking an order of this kind. The focus throughout is asset preservation pending determination...

Use this checklist when representing the seller in the disposal of a registered freehold residential property, whether offered with vacant possession or burdened by a lease or multiple leases. It is not comprehensive and will not address every eventuality in every transaction. You should always consider if there are additional matters that require attention. It does not purport to be a complete guide for every case. Preliminary matters Have you taken instructions from the client? Robust due diligence and effective transaction management depend on a clear grasp of the seller’s objectives and the proposed sale terms. Obtain full instructions, and clarify any elements of your brief that are unclear or out of the ordinary. Consider whether further specialist input is required; for example, planning advice where completion is conditional upon planning permission being secured. The table below sets out some of the principal points on which instructions should be obtained at the outset. This list is not comprehensive, and you may need to request information about additional...

FORTHCOMING CHANGE : The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 obtained Royal Assent on 27 October 2025. For guidance on the Act’s effect on residential tenancies in England, see Practice Note: Renters' Rights Act 2025—key provisions. This checklist sets out the principal issues to assess when handling a disposal of a property interest that is (or might be) subject to the tenants’ right of first refusal under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 (LTA 1987). For more detail and comprehensive guidance, see Practice Note: Tenants' right of first refusal—Landlord and Tenant Act 1987. Landlord Is the intended transferor ‘the landlord’? If yes, is the landlord ‘exempt’ or ‘resident’? In either situation, the right of first refusal does not arise. Disposal Is the landlord entering into an arrangement amounting to a ‘disposal’ (including a contract to create or dispose of an estate or interest in land, an assignment of rights under such a contract, or a contract to assign rights under...

The following flowchart Outlines the principal stages of estate administration, beginning with initial contact from a personal representative or a relative of the deceased, proceeding to the submission for a grant of representation, and concluding with the finalisation and closure of the matter within the file itself...

In Scotland, minor offences are pursued via a summary complaint. The summary process is governed by Part IX of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995...

Procurement process flowchart This Procurement process flowchart outlines the sequence a procurement might follow and highlights the factors to weigh and the considerations involved to maintain a transparent and appropriate procedure. It further points to the Precedents on hand to support you through the procurement steps. This Flowchart serves as a worked illustration and is not meant to be exhaustive. While organisations may adopt quite varied approaches, it offers a useful baseline or point of reference. Any contract value amounts shown here are for demonstration purposes only...

Thiel-Czerwinke and another (joint liquidators of Courtside Recycling Ltd) v Crabb [2024] EWHC 337 (Ch) What are the practical implications of this case? This ruling underlines the uncompromising obligation on directors to maintain trading records, and accepts that discarding or failing to retain them was, on these facts, a constituent part of the director’s fraudulent design. It also clarifies that once office-holders demonstrate that company assets or cash were transferred to a director, the absence of documents showing that the funds or property were applied for the company’s advantage renders the director liable to repay the whole amount to the company. That outcome applies even though the judge did not doubt that Mr Crabb did in fact use some of the cash when making payments for Courtside... What was the background? Mr Crabb served as the Company’s sole director; the business dealt in scrap metal. For the trading periods from August 2014 to February 2018, the Company submitted VAT returns declaring sales, net of VAT, totalling...

Vesnin v Queeld Ventures Ltd and another company [2025] EWHC 104 (Ch) What are the practical implications of this case? The ruling is of practical and procedural importance for practitioners working on cross-border insolvency and asset recovery. It confirms that a party must show a legitimate interest in the bankruptcy to have standing to resist a common law recognition application—such as a creditor, the bankrupt, or a party with a concrete economic stake in the bankruptcy acting in the same capacity from which that stake arises. A merely commercial or tactical interest—like attempting to thwart a claim to title to shares, as here—is insufficient. Advisers for prospective respondents should therefore consider whether their clients possess the requisite interest in the bankruptcy and advise accordingly. The court did not define what amounts to a tangible economic interest in the insolvency, though possible classes could include: beneficiaries of a trust forming part of the bankrupt’s estate; a secured creditor with rights over assets within the estate;...

Original news Mr T (CAS-64304-R5R1)—14 April 2025 Summary The Pensions Ombudsman dismissed a complaint concerning the distribution of death benefits from a pension scheme. It concluded the scheme administrator’s decision was reasonable, neither irrational nor perverse. The complainant was not named in a supposed will—which was invalid as it lacked witnesses—and was the sole beneficiary of the late member’s estate. Before deciding, the administrator carried out extensive enquiries. This outcome serves as a reminder that trustees and administrators of pension schemes should undertake appropriate enquiries when determining death benefit payments. What were the facts? Mr S was a member of the AJ Bell You Invest Self invested Personal Pension Plan (the Scheme). Following his death, he was survived by, among others, Mr T. Mr T had entered into a civil partnership with Mr S...

This Practice Note outlines the concept of parental responsibility for children under section 3 of the Children Act 1989 (ChA 1989). It describes what sits within the scope of parental responsibility and how the courts have read this concept in connection with matters such as education, religious upbringing, consent to medical treatment, changing a child’s surname, and removing a child from the jurisdiction. Definition Parental responsibility relates to the care and raising of a child until they reach adulthood. Under the ChA 1989, parental responsibility comprises all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority that, in law, a parent holds in respect of their child and the child’s property. It also embraces the rights, powers and duties that a guardian of the child’s estate (appointed before the ChA 1989 commenced) possessed in relation to the child’s property. Those rights extend to receiving or recovering, in the guardian’s own name for the child’s benefit, property of any description and wherever located to which the child is entitled to receive...

Stop Press : From accounting periods starting on or after 1 January 2026, the Diverted Profits Tax is superseded by the unassessed transfer pricing profits rules. This Practice Note, alongside Transactions in UK land—tax rules, examines the anti-avoidance provisions aimed at countering attempts to sidestep tax on income, profits or gains connected with arrangements concerning, or trades of dealing in, land. The main anti-avoidance measure seeks to treat gains of a capital character realised on the disposal of land as income, bringing them within income tax or corporation tax. Further detail appears in Practice Note: Transactions in UK land—tax rules. From 5 July 2016 these rules superseded and expanded the former transactions in land rules (for information on prior rules, see Practice Note: Real estate—anti-avoidance: disposals of land and taxing capital gains as income (pre 5 July 2016) [Archived])...

Forthcoming change: Sections 6–7 of the Finance Act 2026 provide that, with effect from 6 April 2027, an individual’s property income will be subject to income tax at the property basic rate of 22%, the property higher rate of 42%, and the property additional rate of 47% for a given tax year. A person’s property income is treated as the highest portion of their income, save where they also have savings and/or dividend income. Where savings and/or dividend income arises, the property income is taken to be the portion of the person’s income that falls immediately before the savings and/or dividend income. FA 2026, Schedule 1, makes consequential amendments to ITA 2007. For these purposes, property income means income that is: chargeable under Chapter 3 of Part 3 of ITTOIA 2005 (profits of a UK property business or an overseas property business) chargeable under Chapter 7 of that Part chargeable under Chapter 8 of that Part chargeable under Chapter 9...

1 Legal costs 1.1 The legal costs of [ insert brief description of services, eg obtaining a grant of probate and distributing an estate ] consist of [ two OR three ] principal elements: our fees; outlays we pay on your behalf (often referred to as disbursements) [ ; OR . ] [ costs you may need to pay to another party. ] 1.2 Our charges We apply a fixed-fee structure [ of £[ insert price excluding VAT ] OR ranging between £[ insert price excluding VAT ] and £[ insert price excluding VAT ] depending on [ insert description of the factors that will dictate where in the fixed price range your fees will fall, eg the value and complexity of your matter ] ] . [ If a matter or transaction does not reach completion, we reserve the right to charge for the work undertaken, using our standard charging rate of £[ insert rate...

Brief details of claim This action is brought under section 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986. The Claimant is the [ insert office held ] at [ insert name of the company ] (the Company). ...

[Your] Will—[ name of testator ]— [ explanatory note ] This [ explanatory note ] sets out the key provisions of your Will in plain terms. Please review it carefully alongside your Will. If anything does not reflect our wishes, please tell [ me OR [ name of person to contact ] ] [ before you sign. ] Revocation When you execute this Will, any earlier Wills or codicils concerning [ your UK estate OR your worldwide estate ] are revoked. As a result, only this Will records your wishes on death in relation to [ your UK estate OR your worldwide estate ]. [ International aspects ] [ [ Your Will only covers your UK assets [ and your assets outside the UK will be dealt with by a separate, local Will OR and your assets outside the UK have already been dealt with by a separate, local Will ] OR Your Will covers your worldwide...

The continuing enforceability of the right of access After the A Land is first registered, whether a right of access remains enforceable hinges on the date when the title to the A Land was first entered on the register. If that initial registration occurred before 13 October 2003, the Land Registration Act 1925, ss 5 and 9 (LRA 1925), provided that the first proprietor of the A Land took the estate subject to any overriding interests that already affected the A Land...

The general rule The general rule is that when a buyer of a freehold interest enters into covenants with the seller, although the burden of restrictive obligations will in many instances bind a successor in title, positive duties requiring the covenantor to act do not run when the freehold is conveyed. A rentcharge operates as a device by which a monetary duty can pass to the successor of the initial buyer. There is no issue, as a matter of contractual privity, in imposing on the purchaser a contractual obligation to pay the seller for the supply of services relating to the land; however, matters become more intricate once the seller transfers the freehold estate to a third party. The rentcharge nonetheless entitles its holder to demand regular periodic payments of money from the owner of the freehold estate. It is not a mortgage, because it does not function as security for a debt...

Joint property ownership in England and Wales When property is owned jointly in England and Wales, it is held in two ways. The legal title shows the names under which the property is registered. Those legal owners hold it on trust for the beneficial owners (also called equitable owners). Beneficial owners are often the same as the legal owners, but need not be. Legal title is always held as joint tenants. Accordingly, the registered owners hold the property ‘per muy et per tout’: each owns the entirety rather than fixed shares...