Have you ever sold a property? Well, as many of our client’s will vouch, it can be a VERY stressful time! However, some would argue that, to take some of that stress away, you could always … raffle your property. 

Finding new clients requiring a solicitor is, believe it or not, uber-competitive. I mean, as soon as you Google ‘personal injury solicitors in Preston’ claims management companies appear at the top of the page, and they don’t even have an office within 20 miles of the Preston area. So, in such times, what does your local property and divorce solicitors do? Well, they turn to social media in order to attract more clients.. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and maybe even Pinterest. 

When you are making a Will (for a fantastic price of £50 plus VAT! – No-brainer, right?) with your Preston Law Firm, MG Legal, they will need to know who you want to leave your estate to (or who you don’t want to leave it to, in some cases!). The common word for this is your beneficiaries.  

 

However, something that you may not have considered is who you would want to benefit from your estate should your initial beneficiaries predecease you. 

When your loved one passes away, quite often you will need to obtain a Grant of Probate, commonly just known as Probate. 

 

This process normally involves making an application to the Probate Registry Office, including details of the deceased’s financial position and their Will. If their Will is not available (or in some cases, if they did not have one), you would need to apply for Letters of Administration. 

Usually, when you prepare a Will through your local solicitors for Wills, MG Legal, we would ask that you attend the office to sign, and two members of staff would be able to act as your witnesses (we’ve witnessed so many Wills, we’ve started to dream about it!). Sometimes, we even visit people at their properties and act as witnesses there. It all depends on how able you are to travel to our offices. 

When a person passes away, if they have left a Will, their estate will most likely need a Grant of Probate obtaining. Solicitors in Lancaster, MG Legal, can help the executors of the Will (the people name in the Will as being ‘in charge’ of the deceased’s estate) to apply and obtain a Grant of Probate. 

When buying a property in joint names, your solicitors in Preston Lancashire will require confirmation as to how you wish to hold the property. This is for entry within the Transfer Deed (TR1), which effectively transfers the ownership of the property from the seller to the buyer. This Deed is submitted to the Land Registry for entry within the Register, it is, therefore, important that this is correct before signature and submission. 

When you are looking at commencing divorce proceedings, there can be so much conflicting advice forced upon you. Unfortunately, as much as your friends, family, co-workers, etc want to help you, ultimately it may just cause you to be more confused than when you started! So, our Lancaster Solicitors have teamed up to explain what really happens during the divorce process, and what you need to do. 

 

In figures released in November 2017 the Family-aimed legal group, Resolution, stated that the numbers of people in the UK co-habiting had doubled from 1.5 million in 1996 to over 3.3 million in 2017; a number which has surely risen since that date. Resolution also surveyed a group of 2,000 individuals, which showed results of a huge misunderstanding of the law and their rights as co-habiting couples. For example, one common misconception, was the principle of 'Common-Law Marriage'. (For their full results see their article here). 

'Common-Law Marriage' is a legal principle which exists in only a small amount of jurisdictions, whereby co-habiting couples are granted rights under the law if they are effectively married i.e. they are arranging their affairs as a married couple would and they are married for all intents and purposes, expect without the legally binding document or religious service.