It is not always necessary to have a written agreement in order to form a partnership but it is a good idea to have one anyway, as it can help to prevent misunderstandings and disputes. If no written agreement is used, a partnership will be governed by the default provisions set out in the Partnership Act 1890.

It is usually recommended that partnerships have a deed drawn up rather than depend on the Partnership Act as it is extremely outdated and may not provide for the specific needs and expectations of a business or the relationships its partners want to create.

Partnership deeds should be drawn up by a suitably experienced solicitor as it is essential that the terms and conditions drafted for new contracts are sufficient enough to override those outlined in the Partnership Act 1890.

In addition to setting out basic information about the partnership, such as its business name, the names of the partners and the type of business and business address, the deed will usually include the following:

• the amount of capital that each partner will contribute to the business
• the way in which partners will share profits or losses, and whether any of the partners should be paid a salary
• working arrangements, such as how much time each partner should contribute to the business, who does what management tasks and what type of decisions need collective agreement between the partners
• changes to the partnership, such as how new partners can be appointed and what happens if a partner dies or wishes to leave

Partnership agreements are extremely important as the Partnership Act 1890 may not offer solutions to many of the problems that can arise and may not suit the way that business partners want to work together.

If you would like more information in relation to partnership deeds, or if you would like to download one of our free legal documents, visit free-legal-documents.co.uk.

Sometimes tenants will be unsure about what tenancy agreement they have but the vast majority of private rented tenants will be assured shorthold tenants.

Assured shorthold tenancy happens automatically if:

• Tenants moved in on or after 28 February 1997
• Tenants pay rent to a private landlord
• Tenants have control over their home so that the landlord and other people cannot come in whenever they want to
• Tenants do not live in the same building as their landlord.

If your tenants moved in between 15 January 1989 and 27 February 1997 and you gave them a notice saying that they have assured shorthold tenancy before the tenancy started, this means that they are an assured shorthold tenant.

The types of tenancy that cannot be assured shorthold tenancies are:

• business tenancies
• tenancies where no (or a very low) rent is paid
• tenancies that started on or after 1 April 1990 and where the current rent is more than £100,000 per year
• tenancies of agricultural land or holdings
• college accommodation
• holiday lets.

If you are looking to find a free shorthold tenancy agreement, visit www.free-legal-documents to find everything you are looking for.

Assured shorthold tenant rights
An assured shorthold tenancy gives tenants the legal right to live in their accommodation for a period of time. The tenancy might be fixed term (meaning that they run for a set period such as six month) or it might roll on a week-to-week or month-to-month basis which is known as a periodic tenancy agreement.

The law gives tenants rights to:

• get information about their tenancy
• control their home so that they can stop other people from freely entering
• get certain types of returns done
• live in the accommodation until their landlord gets a court order to evict them

Tenants may also have other rights and entitlements such as challenging rent increases and having repairs carried out in the property. Nonetheless, landlords also have the ability to evict assured shorthold tenants.

A tenant’s rights to information about their assured shorthold tenancy
If your tenant’s agreement started after 28 February 1997, they will have the right to ask you to provide a statement of terms of their tenancy.

The information that you must provided is:

• the start date of the tenancy
• the amount of rent and when they have to pay it
• how and when the rent may be changed
• the length of any fixed-term.

You must provide your tenants with the information they require within 28 days of them asking.

A tenant’s right to live in their property undisturbed
Your tenants have the right to live in their rented accommodation without being disturbed. They will have control over their home so that you and other people cannot freely enter whenever you want to. You cannot limit or otherwise interfere with their right to live in their home. If you try to do this, you may be breaking the law and could be found guilty of harassment.

If a tenant does not live in their accommodation as their ‘only or principle home’ they might lose their status as an assured shorthold tenant. However, it is possible for tenants to spend time living elsewhere but still keep their assured shorthold tenancy as long as they can show that they are planning to return (for example, by leaving personal possessions there).

Rent Payments
Tenants must pay you the rent that they agreed with you. If they do not pay you, you will be able to take them to court and take action to evict them from your property. If tenants pay rent weekly you must provide a rent book.

Repairs
The law states that you, the landlord, must keep the structure and exterior of the property in good repair. This includes:

• the roof
• guttering
• walls (but this doesn’t include internal decoration)
• windows and doors.

You must also keep the equipment for the supply of gas, electricity, heating, water and sanitation in good repair. You may also have additional responsibilities in relation to repairs depending on the tenancy agreement in place.

Your tenants are responsible for looking after the property. This might include unblocking sinks or changing fuses where necessary. They may also have other responsibilities depending on the terms and conditions of their tenancy agreement.
You must have a valid gas safety certificate for any gas appliances in the property and any furniture you provide should be fire resistant.

If the accommodation needs repairs, your tenants should inform you immediately. If the repairs are your responsibility and you do not carry out your duties, your tenants may be able to force you to complete the work. Nonetheless, you will also have rights and may be able to oppose such requests or consider eviction.

Other people living in the property other than the tenant
Tenants can sometimes get other people to live with them as lodgers or subtenants as long as they continue to live in the accommodation as their ‘only or principal home’. However, they should seek your permission first, even if the tenancy agreement says that you will allow it. If your tenants do not get your permission, you may have the right to evict them rather than allow another person to live in the property.

If a tenant rents out the property and moves elsewhere they will no longer have an assured shorthold tenancy. When their tenancy ends it is likely that anyone living in the property as a subtenant or lodger will no longer have any rights to live in the property either.

How to end an assured shorthold tenancy
A tenancy cannot simply run out. It will continue until it is ended properly by you or your tenant. This can happen in one of three ways:

• you and your tenant agreeing to end the tenancy (known as surrender)
• your tenant serving you a valid notice
• you taking action to evict your tenant

Surrender
If they ask for your agreement in writing, your tenants will be able to surrender their tenancy.

Notice
You are required to give your tenants written notice if you want them to leave. If the tenants have done something wrong (such as not paying the rent), you may only be required to give them two weeks’ notice to vacate the property.

If you do not have a valid reason to evict your tenants, the notice that you give them to leave the property must be at least two calendar months or the same period for which rent is paid, whichever is longer. If the tenancy is periodic the notice should end on the last day of a tenancy period (the day before your rent is due).

If tenants do not vacate the property by the end of the notice period, you will be able to apply for a court order.

Court order
You cannot evict your tenants before you have been to court and the court has agreed to you regaining possession of the property. The court’s permission is on a written notice known as a possession order. The court has no choice but to make an order to evict assured shorthold tenants if the correct procedure has been followed. Tenants may be able to ask the court to delay the order but this can only be done for up to six weeks, and only if they face exceptional hardship.

Tenants will be given the chance to provide information to the court to help the judge decide whether or not they should be evicted. They can send information to the court and/or attend a hearing.

If tenants do not leave by the time the court order takes effect you will be able to ask the bailiffs to physically remove them from the property.

Periodic tenants
If the tenancy is periodic or if the fixed term has come to an end, you will be able to evict tenants fairly easily. There is no reason for you to give a reason to the court but you must be able to show that your tenants have an assured shorthold tenancy and that you have served the correct amount of notice.

Fixed-term tenants
During the course of a fixed-term tenancy, you must have a valid reason for wanting to evict tenants. Your reasons might be:

• tenants have rent arrears
• tenants are constantly or regularly late with the rent
• tenants have broken the terms of their tenancy such as by subletting when they are not allowed to
• tenants have allowed the condition of the property to get worse
• tenants have caused nuisance or annoyance
• your mortgage lender is repossessing the property
• the property is being redeveloped

The court will not evict tenants unless it is satisfied that the reason for doing so exists. In some cases the court must also consider whether it is reasonable to evict tenants.

You can give tenants two months’ notice without having a reason to evict them but the notice should not run out before the end of the fixed term.

When an eviction may be illegal
If you evict your tenants without getting a court order it may be classes as a criminal offence.

To download a free assured shorthold tenancy agreement document just visit www.free-legal-documents.co.uk.

Every day, somebody somewhere has an accident. Of course some accidents are worse than others, some are common occurrences and we hear about them all the time, but others are far stranger.

They say you have more chance of being struck by lightning than winning the lottery -  in the UK, 3 people are killed by lightning each year, with a further 50 people injured. This puts the likelihood of being struck at 1 in 1.2 million, with a 1 in 19 million chance of fatality. Pretty low odds!

So, being struck by lightning is very rare and not an occurrence you might automatically associate with a working environment but yet, it has happened in the past to a PE teacher. Obviously, if someone spends most of their working day outside you would be forgiven for thinking that their chances of being struck would be slightly increased. However, on this occasion, the teacher was struck whilst sitting at his desk in his office inside the school building.

Another unlikely situation presented itself when a man from Derbyshire was shot whilst at work. A typical reaction to this news would be to assume that a criminal act had taken place but the reality is slightly more ironic than that. In this instance, the shooting was an unfortunate risk of his occupation – to control the level of wildlife in the area through hunting.  Whilst out on a hunt, the man was shot accidently by one of his colleagues from close range. Fortunately he made a full recovery and still works in the same position but nonetheless, this just goes to show how serious accidents at work have the potential to be.

It seems that going to work is more dangerous for some than others, but usually it is easy to make a connection between a person’s job and the injuries that they incur whilst at work. However, sometimes, this is not the case. For example, it probably wouldn’t surprise you if you were told that the most common injury amongst football players is ankle sprains. However, you might be more perplexed if you found out that a football player had broken their jaw whilst on the field. Where they hit in the face with the football? Did they land awkwardly? Was violence involved? No to all of the above. In fact, in 1975, Man United goalkeeper Alex Stepney suffered this strange workplace injury by shouting so hard at his defenders that he dislocated his jaw.

So there you go, even if employers abide by their legal requirement and do all they can to protect their employees and even if employees follow guidelines and wear protective clothing, accidents at work will still happen. There will always be accidents due to factors that nobody can predict.

It is therefore important that people are aware of where they can seek reliable advice from a legal professional.

Right Solicitor provides legal advice for free so that individuals who have had an accident at work can benefit from professional guidance and be sure to make the right decisions for their case. All they have to do is type the details of their work accident into the portal on the Right Solicitor site and a legal adviser will respond for free with advice tailored to the individual situation.

However in December 2011 the owners of 14 luxury cars including 8 Ferraris were left to count more than their pennies when they were involved in what was reported to be the single most expensive car crash on record. Super cars to the value of £2.6 million, including a Lamborghini and two top spec Mercedes were involved in the incident in Japan. Luckily no one was hurt but the high level supercars were nearly all written off and scrapped.

If you are involved in a car accident and injured due to the fault of another party then you are fully entitled to claim some form of monetary compensation. The record in the U.K for the highest ever compensation payout currently stands at £11million. The payout which was sanctioned in 2010, four years after the accident took place was paid to Wasim Mohammed, who was involved in a car accident so severe that the injuries he suffered left him unable to move his legs and have only minimal movement in his arms. The accident left him needing daily treatment and the need for full time carers.

The government are planning to put into place new regulations over the next few years to ensure that any ‘bogus’ injury claims are separated from the genuine ones. This will result in larger and quicker pay outs for the people who really do need it from the people trying to claim for an injury they simply didn’t suffer. The best way to pursue with an injury claim is to firstly get advice from a solicitor, at Rightsolicitor.co.uk you can do exactly that and for free!

One vital point potential claimants fall foul to is the ruling In England and Wales of making a claim within 3 years .This rule stipulates that when an individual is pursuing a claim for compensation, court proceedings must be commenced within 3 years of the date of the accident. As many people have unfortunately found out, if this time limit is exceeded you will lose the right to claim. The only exception to the rule being that injured parties who were under the age of 18 at the time of their accident.

There are now also stricter rules being implemented over the next few years to ensure that the increase on ‘bogus’ accident claims and needless compensation fees being paid out are put to a stop.  These changes however will provide a number of benefits for people with genuine claims. The changes will most likely mean that people will receive more in damages and in a shorter time than currently if their claim is genuine.

The new plans will look to deal with the percentage that law firms take of the payout for fighting the case on the claimant’s behalf. One of the key changes that the government is looking to make is that successful law firms claim their fees from the compensation award rather than claiming money directly from the losing side. This wouldn’t mean that the claimants would necessarily receive less money, in fact it is likely to see a rise of around 10% if successful. However the percentage claimable by the solicitors would be capped at 25%.

This will result in Law firms having to consider a lot more carefully whether they think a case will be successful and whether to take it on or not. It will also increase the amount that claimants will hunt around to see which lawyers are charging the lowest fees.

The ease of doing so can be tricky, yet at Right Solicitor you can receive instant advice from a number of professional law firms free of charge who can advice you with the best steps to take next. And if necessary provide you with a quote. Please find us at Rightsolicitor.co.uk and get help with your claim today.

One of the most staggering statistics is the 70% rise in personal injury claims from road accidents and most notably whiplash claims in the past 6 years even though the number of accidents has fallen. So much so that the government now have plans to step in and intervene. New measures to be put in place are designed to cut out false claims which have sent insurance premiums soaring and affected even the safest drivers on the road. The Government will set up an independent panel of experts to investigate suspect injuries and ensure that no false claims are made and no payments are sanctioned unless a genuine injury is proven.

The average cost of a whiplash claim to insurers, from policyholders going through a solicitor, is £12,500, but just £2,500 finds its way to the claimant, the rest is swallowed in fees. However the clamp down could see a resurgence in insurance companies fighting their cases in court rather than just paying out. Justice Secretary Ken Clarke revealed how shocked he is with the current system and the true extent of the new plans: “It is scandalous that we have a system where it is cheaper for insurers to settle a spurious whiplash claim out of court than defend it, creating rocketing insurance premiums for honest drivers. Our reforms will put a stop to this”.

There is no doubt that the risk of genuine injury claims being wrongly dismissed will be seen, and therefore the importance of having the correct legal advice and help from Solicitors has never been more apparent.

At Rightsolicitor.co.uk that is exactly what you can do. Our panel of solicitors will be more than happy to help you out with any compensation queries or questions you may have and if necessary point you in the direction of a top local firm to fight your case. Please register for free at Rightsolicitor.co.uk today and get the advice you need.

• Traditional fee arrangements
• Conditional fee arrangements
• Insurance funded
• Union funded
• Legal Aid
• Free advice services e.g. Citizens Advice Bureau

A traditional fee arrangement is on where you would typically pay an up front and on account payment. This lumps sum would then count towards legal fees on an ongoing basis until the fund is exhausted; at which point another payment or payments will be required until the legal task is complete or you de-instruct the solicitor providing legal advice.

A conditional fee arrangement is where legal advice and representation is funded on the basis that if the solicitor wins the case they then get their fees from the opposition, from a percentage of the settlement or a combination of both. This means you have to have a fairly good case to begin with but an insurance policy will also usually be a pre requisite of the solicitor taking the case and this policy will protect both you and the solicitor.

Insurance funded legal advice and representation is where your house, travel, car or other insurance provides the assistance to resolve legal issues.

Union funded is more or less the same as insurance but requires you to pay membership subscriptions to be able to avail yourself of funded legal advice in this way.

Legal aid is a system of funding available to people in certain areas of law such as Crown Court criminal matters, people below a certain income / savings level or both depending on the case in hand. Each assessment for funding is individual and you can assess yourself www.direct.gov.uk

Free advice services can be found at your local CAB, government assisted legal centres and on some websites.

In any case where you face a legal issue you are unsure of we would always recommend seeking professional legal advice.

When it is time to pay your solicitor then there are some things you should consider.

You should receive a bill within a reasonable time after the legal has concluded and it should consist of three main categories and they are disbursements, VAT and fees.

Disbursements are expenses that the solicitor or law practice has had to pay on behalf of your case. These could be, for example, fees paid to a court or a barrister.

The fee category is the charges levied for the services and professional advice that the solicitor has provided to you or on your behalf. There are no set levels of non court fees but the Law Society and Solicitors Regulation Authority make provision that the charges must be reasonable and fair. Court fees are governed by court rules and regulations that levy fees according to level of seriousness and complexity.

VAT is chargeable for fees and for some disbursement payments.

If you have an issue with the bill or believe that the bill is too much then there are things you can do. You can:

• Request a detailed breakdown from the solicitor
• Request that a court review the bill
• Raise a complaint with your solicitor
• Raise a complaint with www.sra.org.uk

It is best to tackle the above in writing and also ask for a written reply.

Solicitor fees can be high but before you launch into using a solicitor for legal action you may wish to consider using a service like www.rightsolicitor.co.uk where you will probably be pleasantly surprised at a free and easy solution to your legal issue.

So what is a business contract?

A business contract is, usually, a document that forms a legally binding arrangement about exchange of goods / services of a nominated value. In order for a contract to be valid and binding an offer is made and another must accept it.

By having a contract in place for a business deal assists in ensuring an agreement is acted upon and met. If it is not then court action can be taken and enforced in respect of the original agreement and any subsequent damages incurred as a result of the breach of contract should one occur.

The best way to avoid legal issues is to have a solid contract that is achievable and realistic as well as being agreed by both parties. It is always advisable to seek professional advice in drawing up contracts and solicitors are your best resource for this.

When should I use a business contract?

A business contract is best to have in place for:

• Hiring or being employed as a contractor or employee (employers are also protected)
• Buying or providing services or goods
• Leases, rent arrangements and commercial property purchase
• Selling a business
• Partnerships and joint ventures
• Franchises
• Confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements
• No compete agreements

A contract usually involves payment for services / items, but non-monetary contracts are just as valid.

Does a contract have to be written?

A contract can be verbal and can be as valid and as enforceable as a written contract. However, the difficulty lies in actually enforcing these verbal agreements as they are often difficult to definitively interpret and will ultimately be a case of one word against another.

It is always best to have a written contract and, ideally, a contract that is prepared by a solicitor.

An oral contract is a spoken agreement that is as valid as a written contract. For example, if you have a promise that a job will be complete for monetary or other compensation, you have created an oral contract.

If you are in any doubt as to what should or should not be in a contract you can gain some early advice at online legal sites such as www.rightsolicitor.co.uk

Generally speaking, compensation claims fall into two areas. The first is general damages which cover the obvious and immediate effects of an injury like pain, discomfort, disfigurement and recovery.

The second category is special injury and future loss. This relates to any loss of income and expenditure (travelling to medical appointments / court etc) that you would not ordinarily have had. Other types of expenditure could be replacement of things damaged in the accident such as clothes, a vehicle and other property. These figures should also be factored into your decision of how to claim compensation and what to claim for.

Future loss is also a factor and if the injury is of such a significant nature that it would prevent some or all of a victim’s future earnings and potential to earn then this too will feature in the claims process and outcome.