Consumer
A service is judged on the care taken, not only on the result
Buying work is different from buying an object, because the promise implied in most systems is about…
· 4 min read
Omkar Joshi
Editor, What's Your Case
Omkar has been reporting on consumer, housing, work since long before it was fashionable and is unreasonably interested in the detail nobody else checks.
17 articles
Family & Estates
Dying without a will hands the decision to a default order
Intestacy is not an absence of rules but a set of them, written in advance by the legal system, and the…
· 4 min read
Courts
Most disputes settle, and the process is built to make that happen
The overwhelming majority of civil claims end by agreement rather than by decision, and a great deal of…
· 4 min read
Consumer
Buying digital content usually buys permission rather than property
A download, a game library or a streaming account is generally licensed instead of owned, and that single…
· 4 min read
Consumer
Who carries the loss when a parcel never arrives
Delivery disputes turn on when risk passed from seller to buyer, and in consumer sales that moment usually…
· 4 min read
Housing
When a rented home is sold, the tenancy usually goes with it
A change of owner does not by itself end a letting in most systems; it changes who owes the obligations…
· 3 min read
Courts
Mediation is a negotiation with a structure, not a hearing without a judge
A mediator has no power to decide anything, and that absence of power is the feature which makes the…
· 4 min read
Courts
An appeal is a review of a decision, not a second attempt at the case
Appellate courts generally correct errors rather than rehear evidence, which is why losing on the facts is…
· 4 min read
Housing
A neighbour dispute is usually about interference, not about behaviour
Legal systems rarely ask whether a neighbour is being unreasonable as a person; they ask whether the use of…
· 4 min read
Housing
A tenancy guarantor is promising more than most of them realise
Guaranteeing a letting means accepting liability for someone else’s obligations, and the two questions that…
· 4 min read
Work
Agency work puts three parties in a relationship built for two
When a worker is supplied by one business to another, the rights that exist and the party who owes them are…
· 4 min read
Family & Estates
Digital accounts rarely pass to a family the way possessions do
Much of what people accumulate online is licensed rather than owned, and even where value exists the…
· 3 min read
Courts
What happens before a claim is issued often decides how it goes
The exchange of letters that precedes proceedings is not preliminary noise; in many systems it is a stage…
· 4 min read
Courts
Some orders exist to hold a situation still until it can be decided
Interim measures are not early victories; they are provisional steps taken on incomplete evidence to…
· 4 min read
Consumer
Telling a buyer certain things is an obligation, not a courtesy
Many systems require particular information to be given before a consumer contract is concluded, and the…
· 4 min read
Housing
What a tenant builds into a home usually stays with the home
Alterations and improvements raise a question of ownership rather than of taste, and the answer generally…
· 4 min read
Courts
Common law and civil law disagree about who has to hand over documents
Whether a party must produce material that harms its own case is one of the sharpest divisions between…
· 4 min read