Happy New Year and welcome to the first issue of 2009 of our Client Update Newsletter. As always we aim to keep you up-to-date with a monthly round up of news.

So, the base rate is at 1.5%, the lowest level since the Bank of England's inception in 1694. Perhaps this will be the stimulus the economy needs to pick up, or, is it just a stopping off point on the way to zero per cent interest rate?

Free Seminar!!
If you subscribe to this newsletter you are probably already aware of our free estate planning seminar taking place in Harpenden at the Glen Eagle Manor Hotel on 29th January. The seminar includes a buffet lunch and provides you with an excellent opportunity to meet our trusts and probate team and colleagues from other departments. For more information please click here.

Now on to this month's news from the firm and from the legal arena.

Legal News
News from our Family Law department
January is unfortunately a time when many relationships reach the point of final breakdown, which results in the peak period for divorce petitions. A recent case highlighted how far the Courts are prepared to go when assessing the financial requirements for a wife and her horses. Whilst the case may have a humorous side to it, the implications could be quite serious.

When a marriage breaks down it is obviously important to ensure that any children of the relationship do not suffer. If one parent fails to support their child financially then often this is enforced by the Child Support Agency (CSA). The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission has been created and assumes responsibility for the CSA. This should hopefully lead to a fairer system of recovery in circumstances where an absent parent fails to provide the support that should be automatically provided. It also gives greater freedom to agree child maintenance away from the CSA.

It is important to remember that if a relationship breaks down it is usually in the best interests of the children of that relationship to continue to maintain contact with both parents, no matter how stressful that is for the parents or indeed how stressful it appears to be for the children. Mary McEvoy attended an excellent talk given by Dr Ian Kirkland Weir in November dealing with the difficult area of maintaining child contact in complex circumstances. To read Mary’s article please click here.

News from our Wills Probate and Trusts department
Lasting Powers of Attorneys (LPA) replaced Enduring Powers of Attorney on 1st October 2007, but there are still many who are not aware of the changes and their implications. Whether you run your own business, have a family, are young free and single or retired and enjoying a more relaxing period of your life there are good reasons why you should have an LPA in place. There has been much hype as to the difficulty of these documents and the costs of putting these in place, but if you receive good early advice and get the documentation right, the costs can be minimised. We offer a tiered service depending upon your requirements and to find out more please click here.

News from our Commercial and Employment departments
With the way that the economy is going we look set to see an increased number of homes being repossessed this year with the potential for record breaking numbers of individual bankruptcies. Despite claims in the media that the process is too simple meaning that individuals can escape their debt too easily, the process of bankruptcy is not without its difficulties.

If you are a landlord then it is likely that at some point you will need to take action against one of your tenants to recover possession of your property. This can be an expensive time, as often in these circumstances you are not receiving rent but you still have a mortgage to pay. We offer a fixed fee possession service so you know at the outset what costs you will be incurring and when you will regain possession. For more information about this service please click here.

If you run your own business then you will know that it's never easy when staff leave. But one thing you must do is protect your business and have in place safeguards to protect sensitive information relating to the business, to prevent it from falling into the hands of a competitor. We can help with drafting binding "post-termination restrictive covenants".

Every day the press seems to cover yet another business in trouble, hopefully your business or employer is well set to ride through the current economic climate. However, employers should be aware of the potentially serious financial consequences of failing to consult correctly if proposing to make redundant 20 or more employees at one establishment within a period of 90 days.
Managing the debts that your customers owe to you is important in the best of climates, but in the current economic downturn this becomes vital to the survival of your business. There are many debt collection agencies that will be touting for your business, but often a letter from a solicitor carries more weight and produces faster responses.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published a ‘ten point plan’ for businesses for protecting the health and safety of workers and others. It might be worth checking out the summary of the ten points on our website.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is to be given stronger powers according to a recent announcement. The ICO’s new powers will include those of imposing fines on organisations for deliberate or reckless loss of data. Perhaps that will stop the government continuing to lose our data!

Neves News

Trainee Blog
November saw the introduction to our site of the Trainee Blog, located on our home page. This gives our trainee solicitors a chance to introduce themselves and shed a bit of light on what it is like to train to be a solicitor in a busy general practice firm.

Simeon Clipstone
By day Simeon is a busy commercial lawyer, but by night he turns into Arkala’s assistant. Click here to read Simeon’s views and experiences on a year with the scout association.

And finally…

All at Neves offer James Harvey our congratulations upon qualifying as a Solicitor on 5th January. Well done James! James now works in our dispute resolution and family departments and also provides advice on debt collection and Landlord and Tenant possession. For more information about James or to contact him please click here.