Jenny Carpenter was delighted to present the Adams Harrison Solicitors English Literature award on the evening of Tuesday 15thDecember at Samuel Ward School, Haverhill. An evening packed full of talented students.
Hayley Ford of our Wills and Probate team went along to St Nicholas Hospice in Haverhill on the 9th of December to present a cheque for £350.00 to Nick Duncan.
Adams Harrison do not send out Christmas Cards to clients or businesses and instead choose three different charities each year to benefit from the money that would have been spent.
This year the staff chose St Nicholas Hospice, Addenbrookes Charitable Trust (ACT) – Breast Cancer, and the Cambridge Women’s Refuge.
Hayley Ford presents cheque to Nick Duncan.
Today the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Michael Gove has announced that the criminal court charge that was only imposed as recently as April this year will be abolished with effect from 24th December. He stated:
“The courts take money from offenders in a number of ways, including fines, the victim surcharge, compensation orders, prosecution costs and the Criminal Courts Charge.
This array of penalties, fines and charges is complex and confusing. I have therefore asked my department to review the entire structure, and purpose, of court-ordered financial impositions for offenders, in order to bring greater simplicity and clarity to the system.”
He has requested a review of the system regarding financial penalties with the basic principle being that those who have broken the law should bear some of the costs of running the criminal courts. He expressed concern that the Criminal Court Charge had not necessarily achieved this fairly.
Most people are aware of the importance of making a Will to deal with physical assets. Relatively few of us, however, have probably considered what will become of our digital assets when we die.
What is a digital asset?
A digital asset is one that requires a password and username to access. For example, digitally-stored music collections, social networking sites, and online investment and banking accounts.
What to do?
It may be that dealing with your digital estate is as simple as updating your Will to include a digital assets clause. Thereafter, you should note down your passwords for safekeeping. If your Will is being held by Solicitors, it may be a sensible idea for you to provide them with a copy of this information that will be stored confidentially beside your Will. This is particularly useful if you have also appointed Solicitors as your executors.
Failure to plan for digital inheritance can cause problems as without usernames and passwords it can be very difficult for executors to access web domains, social networking sites and other online accounts. As the executors’ duty is to gather in and administer all of the assets of a deceased’s estate, it is important that they are armed with the necessary information to enable them to do so.
The challenge is therefore to keep the information up-to-date and hidden yet accessible when the time comes. It is important to remember that you should not include details of your web-based accounts, passwords and user names in your Will. This is because a Will, once proved, becomes a document of public record and therefore potentially accessible by fraudsters.
For more information, please contact us for expert and friendly advice.
Sue Lawton Practice Manager Adams Harrison
Our Practice Manager Sue Lawton got a surprise on arrival at work – her office had been decorated by the Sawston office staff with banners, balloons and streamers for her birthday, and is pictured with some of the lovely gifts she received.
Adams Harrison sponsored the Haverhill Triathlon this year in aid of the Haverhill Scouts and Guides, and so we entered three teams for the Sprint+ Relay.
We met up outside the Leisure Centre on a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning, the 4th of October, all a little nervous as none of us have ever done a triathlon before. Our teams had to do a 600m swim, 45km cycle and a 10k run. The teams were made up as follows:-
Tri Hards:-
Swimming – Hayley Ford
Cycling – Andy Dedman
Running – Gillian Gilligan
Giving it a Tri:-
Swimming – Tom Pitts
Cycling – Alison Helbert
Running – Simon Gilligan
Tri-Angels:-
Swimming – Lois Revill
Cycling – Sharon Dyster
Running – Rebecca Dedman
All our athletes did extremely well and said that they enjoyed the day (and have even said that they will do it again next year)! The final results of our three teams were:-
1st place – Tri-Hards with a finishing time of 2:46:15
2nd place – Giving it a Tri with a finishing time of 3:01:25
3rd place – Tri-Angels with a finishing time of 3:20:47.
We met up afterwards in the Drabbit Smock for a well deserved drink where Rhodri Rees (our senior Partner) presented a trophy to the winning team.
Congratulations to all our teams, you did an amazing job!
The Finance Bill currently in Parliament will authorise HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) with the right to seize money directly from the bank accounts of taxpayers who have failed to pay their taxes.
Under the rules, HMRC will be able to take money, but must leave the taxpayer with a minimum of £5,000 in their bank or building society accounts, and can only remove money from accounts containing a minimum £5,000. HMRC will be able to exercise ‘direct enforcement’ to collect tax debts of more than £1,000. It is estimated that this will generate about £100 million a year for the Treasury.
The changes do give the taxpayer the right to object to the County Court, although this may be of little use after the money has been seized.
Internet scammers are now scamming individuals into responding to emails about receiving unexpected inheritances. The emails claim to give the recipient the opportunity to claim ownerless properties and funds through the ‘Bona Vacantia Division.’
As a result of such scams, the Bona Vacantia Division (BV Division) has recently issued a warning:-
‘Neither Government Legal Department (GLD) nor BV Division will ever issue emails making such offers. If you receive such an email, you should treat it with suspicion. We would recommend that you do not respond to any such offer, do not click on any links in the email and report it as spam to your internet service provider or to Action Fraud’.
If you do receive an email that you think might be a scam it is therefore important not to reply to the email.
For further information please call your nearest office for expert and professional advice.
Adam’s Harrison have completed an Equality and Diversity questionnaire as as required by the Law Society.
If anyone would like to see a copy of the Equality & Diversity data this can be obtained by applying to [email protected]
Adams Harrison were one of the sponsors of the first Essex East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH) Colour Dash, held at Audley End on 6th September 2015.
We had a wonderful time, got very messy, but this is the team photo before we took off and were all looking pristine!
Adams Harrison EACH Colour Dash 6 Sep 15
To find out more about EACH please like ther Facebook Page and follow them on Twitter.
We were delighted to receive a “thank you” card from EACH for our efforts.
