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Month: August 2020

New appointment: top adviser John Stables joins Lawson West Solicitors as Non-Exec Director

Posted on by Mike

 

On 3 September, Leicestershire-based regional law firm Lawson West Solicitors welcomes a new non-executive Director to the Board, John Stables BA, BFP, FCA.

John Stables, who lives in Oakham in Rutland, replaces non-executive Director Paul Bonnett who is moving to Liverpool at the end of August to be nearer his family and new grandson. 

The firm waves a fond farewell to Paul Bonnett under whose 6-year directorship tenure saw 30% growth of the practice, expansion of the employment, commercial and dispute resolution teams, two office moves to larger premises in Leicester and Market Harborough, merger with Brown & Co solicitors in 2018, and the firm’s nomination in 2020 as ‘Small Law Firm of the Year’ in the Leicestershire Law Society’s annual legal awards.

John Stables is an experienced chartered accountant, qualifying at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is former FD of Smith & Williamson’s Tax and Business Services Division and former FD of Solomon Hare LLP in Bristol. He joins Lawson West’s main board of directors from September 2020, alongside Managing Director David Heys, Ashley Hunt, Vicky Jones, and James Haworth.

In his career, John Stables was the CFO of Openfield Group Limited until 2016, the largest farmer-owned grain marketing mutual in the UK. Since 2017, he has been a non-executive director on the Board of The Earl Shilton Building Society and a member of the Nominations Committee and Chair of that company’s Audit Committee. In 2019, John joined the Royal Agricultural University as an Independent Governor, where he is Chair of the Finance & Estates Committee.

Lawson West Directors

Directors at Lawson West [left to right]: Ashley Hunt, David Heys, Vicky Jones, James Haworth.

Managing Director, David Heys, said of the appointment:

“Paul Bonnett has been an amazing non-exec to Lawson West and has guided us through some challenging and interesting times, not least of all the Coronavirus Pandemic! 

I am so pleased and delighted to be welcoming John Stables to our Board as a non-executive Director. His depth of finance expertise and 30 years business experience bring a solid foundation to develop our practice in the years ahead. His brief is to help us to continue to grow the firm and he believes the way to do it is to provide terrific value through excellent service. That is what we are all about, and I am looking forward to working with him.”

John Stables adds:

“Lawson West has a great reputation as a go-ahead firm, committed to client service, and I’m looking forward to helping them grow further.”

From October – many employers will struggle to pay their staff. Are redundancies inevitable?

Posted on by Mike

 

Carrie-Ann Randall
Carrie-Ann Randall, Employment Lawyer at Lawson West Solicitors, Market Harborough
crandall@lawson-west.co.uk 


Employers will struggle to pay wages

Many employers are struggling to make ends meet now, but at the end of October the government will withdraw the Coronavirus Job Retention scheme (CJRS) cancelling flexible furlough contributions towards employee pay. When this happens, many employers will face a huge shortfall in their ability to pay wages.

Plan ahead for the autumn

Employers should start to plan now for the impact this will have.

Employers can use the furlough scheme until the end of October to receive government contributions towards employee pay, view our at-a-glance chart below.

  • From 1 September the government’s contribution incrementally reduces to 70% of wages.

  • From 1 October the government’s contribution incrementally reduces to 60% of wages

  • From 31 October the CJRS will cease.


Carrie-Ann adds:

“Employers need to start to plan ahead and consider what steps they need to make to their workforce to continue to be able to afford to pay employees from the end of October, when the flexible furlough scheme (CJRS) ends.

Workforce planning options might include:

  • discussing a reduction in hours or overtime

  • discussing a reduction in pay for a set period of time

  • extending holiday entitlement in exchange for less pay

  • reducing days worked

  • introducing a sabbatical or unpaid leave of absence; or

  • implementing redundancy options, voluntary or compulsory

At Lawson West Solicitors, we can help you to manage and plan for all these options in the right way, avoiding legal problems and unfair dismissal claims that could arise in the future.”

3 most common employer redundancy mistakes

If you are in the process of making redundancies or considering them, you might like to know the 3 redundancy mistakes employers often make, see more here.

Redundancy - 3 Mistakes Employers Make when making employees redundant

 

      • What steps will you take in your business this autumn?

Please find recent information available from the Government about the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), furloughing employees and calculating wages and contributions here and click on the summary charge below to view key deadlines.

Claiming for staff wages  – the Government’s step-by-step guide to CJRS

Redundancy or Flexible Furlough? That is the Question – see Carrie-Ann’s related article

CJRS Updated Scheme Chart

 

Donate Your Organs! – confirm your wishes in Your Will

Posted on by Mike

Organ Donation – Are you IN or OUT?

Christian Jenkins
Christian Jenkins, Lawson West Solicitors, Market Harborough

Many of you may not be aware, but due to a change in the Law, as of the 20th May 2020 you are officially opted IN.   

England has now stepped in line with other countries in the UK to help save and improve more lives which means that if you die, your organs will be considered for donation unless you are either under the age of 18, lack capacity to understand the new arrangements or are just a visitor to the UK.

Read more here – NHS Blood and Transplant

According to the NHS every day, someone in the UK dies in need of an organ, because not enough organs are available for transplant. But only 1% of people die in circumstances that would allow them to donate.

This just goes to demonstrate the importance of organ donation and begs the question, what it if was your family member?

Organ donation was and still is considered as an act of generosity, often one of personal belief which many of you have or would have voiced through your Will or by completing a consent form.  But those of you who do not want to be considered for organ donation still have the right to choose whether or not to be an organ donor and your family will still be consulted about donating your organs when you die to ensure that your faith, beliefs and culture will continue to be respected.

For more information and to decide whether being an organ donor is right for you and to join the register go to www.organdonation.nhs.uk.

3,815 – people are waiting for a transplant in the UK

1,012 – people have received a transplant since April 2020

Once you have decided whether you wish to be an organ donor, you should also consider whether to record your decision in your Will. 

Whilst you or a family member may not opt out, the NHS must still obtain the permission of the family and so ensuring that your Will is up to date is vitally important. 

So why wait? Contact us today to see how we can help you to confirm your wishes. 

Contact Probate & Wills Solicitor, Christian Jenkins, on cjenkins@lawson-west.co.uk 

Story of the lost Will – located 25-years later

Posted on by Mike

Victoria Jones, Director of the Probate and Wills department at Lawson West Solicitors explains how a Certainty Will Search notification led to Lawson West winning the probate work from a Will our firm had written twenty-five years earlier.
 
Victoria Jones, Director, Lawson West Solicitors comments:

“We first received notification that a client of ours had passed away when we were sent a Will Search notification from Certainty – the National Will Register. After searching our archived Wills, we were able to confirm that we held the missing Will from November 1995, which appointed the Partners of the firm as the Executors of the estate.”
 
“We quickly got in contact with the individual that was searching for the Will to firstly ask for identification to check that they were entitled to view the Will.”

 
“The individual searching for the Will was the daughter of the deceased. She explained that the family could not find a copy of a Will in her mother’s paperwork and they were unsure whether a Will existed at all which led her to conduct a Will Search with Certainty. She was so relieved that they had been able to locate her mother’s Will.”

Vicky Jones adds:

“The Will gave a specific gift to her grandchildren which would have not of occurred under the Intestacy Rules. Without receiving the Certainty Will Search notification, we would have not have known that our client had died and would have lost the probate work as the family may have instructed other solicitors on the assumption that the deceased had died intestate.”

A Will Search at Certainty costs £38.00 +VAT.

  • As an Executor or Administrator you have the legal authority, responsibility and duty to distribute the deceased’s estate correctly and could be held financially responsible for any mistakes made through any breach of duty.
  • To help avoid issues arising later in the process of distributing an estate during probate, it is important to identify whether a Will exists and who holds the most up-to-date version before any work is undertaken.
  • To help confirm the existence of a Will or prove the Will you hold, the Law Society recommend using Certainty the National Will Register to search nationally for registered and unregistered Wills. At Lawson West we can help you with this process.

There are many reasons why a person might need to search for a Will using the Certainty Will Register (a full list of reasons and the application form can be found here), these include:

  • Checking there is no unknown Will

  • A belief there is a Will but cannot locate it

  • A belief there is a later Will than the one being used to distribute the estate

Vicky Jones

For further information on the types of searches you can carry out please contact vjones@lawson-west.co.uk, or visit the Certainty website for more information here.

Lawson West Solicitors has been a member of Certainty since 2016 – Certainty is the name for the UK’s National Will Register.

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