Your legal questions answered by Fahmida Ismail, Partner at Sydney Mitchell LLP.
Q. I have worked at a garden centre for nearly 12 years, with days off on Tuesdays and Saturdays. This year the staff were upset to be told that their days off were to be taken as Christmas Day and Boxing Day, since otherwise some of them would have got an extra two days’ holiday. Can this be right?
A. You will have to look in your employment contracts for the answer, or failing that it will depend on custom and practice. If you have always had an extra two days’ paid holiday over Christmas and your employer has changed this you could take the matter to an employment tribunal. But unless you can argue custom and practice, and your contract doesn’t give you extra paid holiday at Christmas, then any additional days you take off will have to come out of your annual holiday allowance.
Q. I owe £4,000 to the bank. I’m 62 and I’m wondering whether they can make me sell my house to pay the debt off. I was under the impression that they can’t evict you if you’re over 60.
A. If the bank pursued this to the bitter end they would secure a judgment against you in the County Court. In order to enforce this they could attempt to seize your goods, or apply to the court for an order charging your property with the judgment debt. Ultimately they could apply for your property to be sold to pay the debt. At that point your age could become relevant, since the judge would take all of your circumstances into account before making the order. However these are drastic measures for a debt of £4,000. Discuss with the bank ways in which you might be able to pay it off.
Q. What are the rules on pension-sharing in divorce cases? Can I claim half of a pension my husband contributed to before we were married? He joined a new pension scheme when he got a new job. We have no children.
A. There are no fixed rules about these things. If you were to go to court to sort out your finances the court would look at a wide range of issues, from the income, earning capacity, property and other financial resources of both spouses to their ages and the length of the marriage. All your assets would be taken into consideration, including pensions before and after marriage. Since there are no children it’s possible that the sensible outcome would be to split everything down the middle, but few divorce settlements result in a 50/50 split. You should discuss this in detail with a solicitor.
Q. A friend made a will more than 60 years ago, before his daughter was born. His wife died over ten years ago. He will not entertain making a new will, even though the old one can’t currently be located. What will be the outcome when anything happens to him?
A. If the will can’t be found, your friend’s money and property will go to his daughter (assuming she’s an only child) under intestacy rules. If it turns up and simply passes everything to the wife with no alternative then, as the wife died before your friend, the gift to the wife will fail and the estate will pass under the intestacy rules. The result may be the same, with everything going to his daughter, but your friend should make a fresh will or at the very least locate and review his old one.
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