Jordan Williams Law provide specialist advice for motoring offences serving courts in Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire.

The Government is proposing tough new penalties in England and Wales for persons who smoke or persons who permit someone else to smoke in a car if children are passengers.

The maximum fine for smoking in these circumstances may rise to £800 if the matter reaches Court or a £50 fixed penalty fine.

For persons who permit someone else to smoke the fines that a Court can impose may be increased to a maximum of £10,000.

The new laws are likely to apply to offences in both England and Wales.

For free confidential advice about divorce or relationship issues please contact David on 07793 055104 or david@jwlaw.co.uk or Sarah on 0788 7721458 or sarah@jwlaw.co.uk

The Government has announced that child maintenance application fees are being introduced with immediate effect.

All new applicants to the Child Maintenance Service from 30 June 2014 will be charged a one off application fee of £20.

People will be exempt if they are:

• A victim of domestic violence and have reported this to an appropriate person or organisation including a solicitor
• Residents of Northern Ireland
• Aged under 19
• From 11 August 2014 collection charges will be charged to both parents in relation to all cases in the Child Maintenance Service collect and pay system on or after that date.

The charges will be 4% deducted from the payments received by the parent with care and 20% added on to the liability for the non-resident parent.

The Department of Work and Pensions which oversees the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has said:

The cost of the new application will be £20 for most applicants when the application is processed and a child maintenance calculation is performed.

• Fees and charges will be introduced from 30 June 2014 for use of the CMS service
• RA letter is being issued to all CMS clients giving them 6 week’s notice that they will charged if the CMS collects and pays out child maintenance on their behalf

For parents who apply to the CMS but arrange payments directly between themselves there are no further fees to pay. This is called “direct pay”. This service offers the reassurance to clients of knowing that if payments are not paid the CMS can step in and make sure any missed payments are calculated.

Parents who cannot use direct pay can use the collect and pay service where the charges will apply as above.

From today the DWP are ending Child Support Agency (CSA) child maintenance arrangements. All affected parents will be contacted between now and 2017 to give them notice that their arrangement will end. Most clients will be given 6 months notice and will be offered support from child maintenance options to put a new arrangement in place.

Clients whose cases are still managed by the CSA will not be charged for that service.

T There are reports that the Government is to rewrite the Highway Code to permit driverless cars on the UK’s roads. See this report here in The Independent

The law is to be amended to allow that “every driver shall at all times be able to control his vehicle or to guide his animals”. This will allow a car to drive itself provided that the controls can be overridden or switched off by the driver, thus retaining overall control.

Let’s hope that the technology works and we don’t have too many of these…

For a free consultation about any road traffic offence please contact David on 07793 055104 or david@jwlaw.co.uk

Capital Gains Tax – private residence relief reduced to 18 months can give rise to a previously unexpected affect tax liability for separating or divorcing couples.

Capital Gains Tax – private residence relief reduced to 18 months can give rise to a previously unexpected affect tax liability for separating or divorcing couples.

When you sell your home there is a capital gains tax relief called ‘principal private residence relief’. You are treated as living there, so entitled to this relief, during the last period of ownership even if you are not actually living there. Until this year the relief covered the last 36 months of ownership, but from 6 April 2014 the government reduced that period to 18 months.

This may have financial consequences for couples separating or divorcing. Couples may have made arrangements for the family home on the basis that they would have the relief for 36 months, and now find themselves in a position where that has been halved. If one person moves out of the family home, there may be an issue with the private residence relief on that person’s share of the property. If both have moved out but at different times, then that can give rise to different tax liabilities for each. Where this is likely to be an issue we would strongly recommend taking advice from a specialist tax adviser.

Jordan Williams Law Ltd. has the expertise and experience to help you reach financial agreement on divorce or separation. For more information look at our page on this subject For more information look at our page on this subject here.