Under the Child Abduction Act 1984 it is a criminal offence for anyone connected with a child under 16 to take the child out of the UK without the consent of the parents, or of those with parental responsibility. The child abduction may take the form of one of the parents simply removing the child… Read more »
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Parental Child Abduction
Consumer Code for New Build Homes
The fourth edition of the Consumer Code for Home Builders was issued in September, 2017, and is approved by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute. Developers signing up to the Code must ensure the highest standards in the marketing, selling and buying of New Homes, and continue these levels of service into after- sales and customer… Read more »
Celebrating St Albans History
Bretherton Law is proud of its association with the city and people of St Albans and its surrounding districts going back over 50 years. The business began operating in 1965, from an office on Romeland Hill with views of St Albans Abbey, the Abbey Gateway and St Albans Boys School, and we have always been… Read more »
First-time buyers on the up
So says UK Finance, the organisation representing the UK banking and lending industries. According to the group`s latest figures first-time borrowers accounted for £5.9 billion of loans in June, an increase of 26% on the month before and up 9% on June 2016. This amounted to 36,000 individual home loans, an overall increase of 6%… Read more »
He was a wise man who invented beer – so said the Greek philosopher Plato.
According to a report by accountants UHY Hacker Young there are now over 2,000 breweries in the UK, more than at any time since the 1930s, with 300 small breweries opening in 2016 alone. St Albans and its surroundings may have initially been slow to pick up on this trend but we can now boast… Read more »
Who Cares?
Care Homes have been much in the news over the past few months, whether it be the Government`s U-turn on the proposed rate of personal contributions, fears over staffing levels after Brexit, or the steep rise in bankruptcies across the care home sector. A court case last June, involving residents with learning disabilities at two… Read more »
Financial Help for Grandparents Raising their Grandchildren.
According to the charity Grandparents Plus there are 200,000 grandparents and family carers in the UK looking after 300,000 grandchildren. Many of the carers have to give up work or reduce their hours in order to take on the responsibility of looking after these children, and end up being financially worse off because of it.… Read more »
No Laughing Matter
What have the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, the Roman poet Horace, and the White Hart Hotel in St Albans got in common? The answer is Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, who lived between 1667 and 1747. Lovat was nicknamed “the Fox” owing to his feuding and frequent changes of allegiance. Despite outwardly maintaining his loyalty… Read more »
The disappearing Bungalow. Bad news for an ageing population?
Did you know that the word bungalow is a throwback to Britain’s Colonial past? The bungalow came into the English language in the late 17th century from the Hindi word bangla, meaning belonging to Bengal. The word was used to describe the type of cottage built for early European settlers and traders in eastern India. The… Read more »
Tips on moving home
There’s no doubt that moving home is one of the most challenging life events that anyone can go through. It’s both physically and mentally demanding and the resulting change and unfamiliarity naturally creates feelings of stress and anxiety so we asked Carole Simkins, a professional counsellor, for some tips to help you make a stress-free move… Read more »
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