If you are interested in subscribing to a quarterly Private Client Bulletin please email me at: james@legalknowledgescotland.com
The Bulletin will review the latest cases, provide updates on the latest consultations, legislation and official publications and include articles and news items.
A preview Bulletin will be published in late October.
If you are interested in subscribing to a quarterly Private Client Bulletin please email me at: james@legalknowledgescotland.com
The Bulletin will review the latest cases, provide updates on the latest consultations, legislation and official publications and include articles and news items.
A preview Bulletin will be published in October.
“On 8th September 2014 we introduced a new policy for reviewing accounts.
Solicitors submitting accounts for review will no doubt be aware that our recent and current processing times are lengthy. While we accept that our level of service could be better, it is our experience that the standard of a significant proportion of submitted accounts are incomplete and are not supported with the necessary documentation. These cases require our reviewing officers to spend additional time and effort trying to problem solve, balancing accounts or writing to financial guardians looking for the necessary information.
Therefore, to address issues and help improve our processing times, a new policy will be applied to all accounts submitted after 8th September 2014.
Solicitors are advised that we will be returning all accounts:
We may also return any/all forms which do not balance (although this will be subject to discretion).
This measure has been taken to reduce the amount of time spent on incomplete accounts and to help improve the standard of accounting submitted. This policy will apply to accounts submitted by lay and professional financial guardians. Solicitors advising prospective financial guardians on their potential role are asked to bring the above information to their attention.”
More on this can be found here.
If you are interested in subscribing to a quarterly ‘Private Client Bulletin’ please email me at: james@legalknowledgescotland.com
The Bulletin will review the latest cases, consultations, legislation, official publications and news items.
HMRC’s August 2014 edition of the Trusts & Estates newsletter for trusts and estates practitioners is now available online and can be found here.
If you are interested in subscribing to a quarterly Private Client Bulletin please email me at: james@legalknowledgescotland.com
The Bulletin will review the latest cases, consultations, legislation, official publications and news items.
The Scottish Law Commission has published a major report recommending substantial reform of the law of trusts in Scotland.
This is from the Scottish Law Commission.
“We publish today our Report on Trust Law. Despite the prominence of trusts in Scots law, the institution is badly served by existing legislation. The main statute, the Trusts (Scotland) Act 1921, is almost a century old: its structure and language have become antiquated, and the uses to which trusts are put have evolved over that time. The Act has been heavily amended over the years, leading to a lack of clarity and practical difficulties for trustees and beneficiaries. The recommendations in our Report will affect all those who use trusts and our draft Trusts (Scotland) Bill is aimed at providing a modern system of trust law, allowing Scotland to compete more effectively in the global trusts world.”
More on this, including the full report can be found here.
“25 August 2014
Update on Power of Attorney Submissions
There is a waiting period before your power of attorney (PoA) can be processed and returned to you.
If there is a genuine urgency, we will expedite the registration of a PoA ‘on cause shown’. We ask that people respect this service and only use it in cases of true urgency to avoid defeating its purpose.”
More on this issue can be found here.
Delaware has become the first US state to grant deceased residents’ executors the right to take over their digital assets such as email and social media accounts.
This is from an article in ars technica.
“While some states, including Idaho and Nevada, have some existing provisions pertaining to limited digital assets for heirs, they are not as broad as the new Delaware law. For now, the state’s version of UFADAA only applies to residents of Delaware, one of the smallest states by population and land area. If other states don’t follow suit soon, people creating family trusts could conceivably use this Delaware law to their advantage, even without residing in Delaware. However, even though many tech companies (including Twitter, Facebook, and Google) are incorporated there, they will not be affected by the new law.”
The whole article can be found here.
A link to an earlier blog on digital assets can also be found here.
The consultation seeks views on jurisdiction and choice of law; wills and survivorship; rights of succession in limited circumstances; bonds of caution and the timescale for a surviving cohabitant to make a claim on a deceased cohabitant’s intestate estate.
The consultation is open until 7 November.
The consultation can be found here.
