Posted on September 29, 2026
Retirees are handing an average of £4,522 a year to their children and grandchildren, according to new research from Quilter published on 28 September. The survey of more than 5,000 retirees also found something more worrying: 39% say the political environment is affecting their inheritance tax planning, and 62% of those who withdrew tax-free cash from their pension ahead of the last Budget now regret doing so.
With the next Budget on 28 October and speculation swirling about inheritance tax, that last figure is a warning worth taking seriously. Here's why rushed estate planning decisions so often backfire, and what you can sensibly do in the weeks ahead.
Read more...Posted on September 29, 2026
The government has unveiled "Your First Home", a new scheme that will let first-time buyers in England purchase a new-build home with a deposit of just 2.5%. Announced by Prime Minister Andy Burnham on 28 September, it pairs that small deposit with a government-backed equity loan worth up to 20% of the property's value, with an initial interest-free period. Full details, including price caps and income limits, are expected in Chancellor John Healey's Budget on 28 October, and pre-registration is due to open by the end of 2026.
For anyone who has watched house prices outpace their savings, this sounds like a breakthrough. It could be. But an equity loan is a legal and financial commitment that lasts for years, and buying a new-build brings its own conveyancing pitfalls. Here's what first-time buyers need to know before signing up.
Read more...Posted on September 29, 2026
"Couples can't afford to get divorced." That was the verdict of Lisa Pepper of Osbornes Law, one of several family lawyers reacting this week to new Office for National Statistics divorce figures. Divorce numbers in England and Wales stayed flat in 2025, at just under 106,000, and lawyers say economic pressure is part of the reason. Vanessa Friend of Hodge Jones & Allen described couples delaying separation because of uncertainty about the economy, mortgage rates and school fees, and turning to separation agreements instead.
With inflation back above 3% and the Bank of England warning that interest rates may rise again, many couples find they've emotionally separated long before they can afford to formally divorce. If that's your situation, there's a lot you can do to protect yourself in the meantime.
Read more...Posted on September 29, 2026
No-fault divorce has become the way almost everyone in England and Wales now ends a marriage. New figures from the Office for National Statistics, published this week, show that 94.2% of divorces and civil partnership dissolutions granted in 2025 went through the no-fault system introduced in April 2022. In total, 105,961 couples ended their marriage or civil partnership last year, almost unchanged from 2024, and the median length of a marriage ending in divorce reached 13 years, the longest since records began in 1963.
The data also shows that 74.1% of applications were made by one spouse alone rather than jointly, and that women brought 61% of sole applications in opposite-sex marriages. Behind those numbers is a process that is simpler than ever, but still easy to misunderstand. Here's what the figures tell us and where people most often go wrong.
Read more...Posted on September 16, 2026
Couples going through divorce this year are running into a family court system that has less time for them than ever. Reduced sitting days for financial remedy hearings — confirmed by the President of the Family Division and now taking effect through 2026 — mean some hearings are being double-booked, with the "backup" case cancelled at short notice if the primary one runs long. For families already mid-divorce, that can mean a hearing they've prepared for, taken time off work for, and paid legal fees towards, vanishing from the list with only a few days' warning.
Read more...Posted on September 16, 2026
Five months after it came into force, many family farm and business owners are only now discovering what the government's revised inheritance tax relief actually means for them — and whether their succession plans still add up. Since 6 April 2026, Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief have been capped at a combined £2.5 million per person for 100% relief, up from the £1 million figure originally proposed, following months of pressure from farming groups and family business owners.
Read more...Posted on September 16, 2026
UK house prices have fallen year-on-year for the first time since November 2023, according to Lloyds Bank data released this week. The average property now costs £298,468 — down 0.4% on this time last year, and 0.2% lower than the previous month. After nearly three years of steady growth, the market has quietly tipped into reverse.
Read more...Posted on September 16, 2026
Just weeks after lenders spent August competing to cut mortgage rates, the trend has gone into reverse. Five-year swap rates — the wholesale funding costs that set fixed mortgage pricing — have climbed above 4.5% in early September, their highest level in around three years, as fears build over what the Autumn Budget might bring. Average two-year fixed rates now sit at 5.59%, with five-year fixes at 5.63%, according to the latest Moneyfacts data.
Read more...Posted on September 16, 2026
Families fighting over inheritance are no longer the exception — they're becoming the norm. New figures show 11,328 probate caveats were lodged in England and Wales in 2025, the second-highest annual total ever recorded, just 34 short of the all-time record. Contested probate cases have held steady at an elevated level too, suggesting this isn't a temporary spike but a permanent shift in how often families end up in dispute over a loved one's estate.
Read more...Posted on August 11, 2026
If you've been an executor waiting on a grant of probate that seems to have vanished into a black hole, there's finally a formal route to do something about it. HM Courts and Tribunals Service confirmed this week that it has introduced a dedicated escalation pathway for probate applications that have been stuck for more than 12 weeks, or for cases that have already been queried and need further investigation. It's a small administrative change, but for anyone stuck mid-probate with a house sale on hold or bills piling up, it could matter a great deal.
Read more...Posted on August 11, 2026
If you're separating and were counting on free mediation to sort out arrangements for your children or your finances, a new report should give you pause. The Justice Select Committee's "Access to Justice: Legal Aid" report, published this month, found that legal aid capacity for family mediation has become "significantly constrained" — and backed urgent calls to fix it. The reason is stark: the number of mediators still offering legal aid has fallen by 50% since 2018, largely because the rates paid to them have been frozen for 25 years and no longer cover the cost of the work.
For separating couples who assumed mediation would be the affordable, low-conflict route through their split, that's a serious problem. Here's what's actually going on, and what your options are if you can't find a legal aid mediator near you.
Read more...Posted on August 11, 2026
Nationwide announced on 3 August that it's cutting mortgage rates by up to 0.19 percentage points across its two, three and five-year fixed deals, bringing its lowest rate down to 4.52%. It's welcome news for buyers and those remortgaging — but the timing tells its own story. Just weeks earlier, lenders had been pushing rates the other way, after swap rates spiked when tensions in the Middle East flared up in July. The average two-year fixed mortgage rate had climbed to 5.62%, up from 4.83% in March, according to Moneyfacts. Now Nationwide is pivoting back down as swap rates ease off their peak.
If you're trying to buy a home in the middle of all this, you could be forgiven for feeling like you're chasing a moving target. Here's what the volatility actually means for your purchase, and how to stop rate swings from derailing your move.
Read more...Posted on August 11, 2026
The government's "A Fairer End to Relationships" consultation closes on 14 August — this Thursday — and buried within its wider proposals on cohabitation and divorce finance is a change that could matter to anyone planning a wedding: a proposal to make "qualifying nuptial agreements" legally binding for the first time in England and Wales. Right now, a prenup can be taken into account by a court, but a judge can override it if they think it's unfair. Under the proposed reform, an agreement that meets certain safeguards would be enforced as a matter of course. If you're engaged, recently married, or simply think you might want that kind of protection one day, this is a genuinely new development worth understanding — not just another consultation update.
Read more...Posted on August 11, 2026
A conveyancing solicitor's diary entry published this week by Today's Wills and Probate's sister title, Today's Conveyancer, tells an uncomfortable story: a buyer purchased a property through the Modern Method of Auction, only for the lender's own valuer to flag serious structural defects the moment the survey was carried out — defects the estate agent had known about all along. The property had already fallen through twice with two previous buyers, both unable to get a mortgage because of exactly the same problem. Rather than come clean, the agent simply moved the listing into an online auction, collected a non-refundable reservation fee, and left the new buyer to discover the truth for themselves.
It's a stark illustration of a problem that's been quietly building as more sellers turn to online property auctions. If you're thinking about buying this way, here's what you need to understand before you place a bid.
Read more...Posted on August 11, 2026
Solicitors' firms across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland are being urged this week to sign up for Will Aid 2026, the annual scheme that runs throughout November and lets participating solicitors write a basic will for free — with clients invited to make a voluntary donation to charity instead of paying the usual fee. Last year's campaign saw solicitors complete 8,375 wills, raising £832,000 in direct donations and an estimated £3.64 million in future charitable legacies. It's one of the simplest, lowest-cost ways to get a proper will in place, and yet more than half of UK adults still don't have one.
If you've been putting off writing a will, or haven't updated yours in years, Will Aid is a good prompt to finally deal with it — but there's more to know than just marking November in the diary.
Read more...Posted on July 21, 2026
If your house sale has stalled and nobody seems able to tell you why, there's a good chance the answer is sitting in a council office in-tray. New research from House Buyer Bureau has found that local authority search delays in some parts of England have stretched to 92 working days — nearly four calendar months for a single piece of paperwork that used to take a couple of weeks. For anyone mid-transaction, or about to start one, this is worth understanding before it derails your move.
Read more...Posted on July 21, 2026
"Most people assume that once probate is granted, executors can access everything the person owned. That simply isn't true with digital assets." That warning, from Stuart Downey, a partner at TWM Solicitors, cuts to the heart of a problem increasingly catching families off guard: a grant of probate gives you the legal authority to deal with someone's estate, but it doesn't hand you the password. If you're an executor, or you're thinking about who'll act as yours, digital assets are one of the areas most likely to catch you out.
Read more...Posted on July 21, 2026
If you've ever had a house sale collapse weeks before completion, you'll know exactly why the government has just published its Home Buying and Selling Reform Roadmap. The figures behind it are stark: around one in three property transactions in England now falls through before completion, costing consumers an estimated £400 million a year between them. With conveyancing firms this month being urged by their own regulator, the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, to get behind the plan, this is a reform that's moving from paper to practice — and it's worth understanding now, whether you're buying, selling, or both.
Read more...Posted on July 21, 2026
Nearly half of UK homeowners aged 45 and over describe themselves as "just getting by" financially — yet new research published this week shows their estates average £410,252, well over the £325,000 inheritance tax threshold. The survey of 2,000 homeowners by savings platform Flagstone found that 38% had estimated estates worth £500,000 or more, and 13% were sitting above £1 million. If you've never thought of yourself as someone with an inheritance tax problem, this research suggests you might want to look again.
Read more...Posted on July 21, 2026
Under a legal quirk that has troubled family lawyers and protective parents for years, a parent convicted of sexually abusing a child could still, in principle, retain parental responsibility for that child or their siblings — with the power to weigh in on schooling, medical treatment, and other major decisions. The Victims and Courts Act 2026, which has now received Royal Assent, closes that gap. For the first time, courts will be required, not merely permitted, to strip parental responsibility from offenders convicted of the most serious child sexual offences, including cases where a child was conceived through rape.
Read more...Posted on July 16, 2026
New figures show that contentious probate disputes have risen by 56% over the past five years, with caveat applications — the legal tool used to freeze a probate application while a dispute is investigated — up 12% in the most recent year alone, reaching 11,589 by mid-2025. If you're currently administering an estate, or expect to be named as an executor, this surge means the odds of a will being challenged are meaningfully higher than they were even a few years ago, and it's worth understanding why before a dispute catches you off guard.
Read more...Posted on July 16, 2026
New industry data published this week shows that 37% of homebuyers in England and Wales have been gazumped — outbid by a rival buyer after already agreeing a price — up from around a third just two years ago. Almost eight in ten buyers say they want the practice banned outright, and more than half of those gazumped ended up out of pocket, with the average cost of a collapsed deal now running to around £2,400 in wasted survey fees, legal costs, and mortgage arrangement charges. If you're currently buying a home, this is a timely reminder that "sold subject to contract" means exactly that — subject to contract, and nothing more.
Read more...Posted on July 16, 2026
The government has confirmed it will repeal the presumption of parental involvement from the Children Act 1989 through the new Courts and Tribunals Bill, ending a legal starting point that has shaped child arrangements decisions in England and Wales for over a decade. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said the change means "every child deserves to be safe, every victim deserves to be heard, and every family deserves a justice system they can trust." For any parent currently negotiating, or expecting to negotiate, arrangements for their children after a separation, this is a genuine shift in how the family court approaches contact — not just a technical legal tweak.
Read more...Posted on July 16, 2026
New figures obtained from HM Land Registry this month show 55 confirmed cases of property fraud between April 2025 and March 2026, where criminals impersonated homeowners in an attempt to sell their property, remortgage it, or transfer ownership using forged documents. It sounds like a small number set against the millions of homes in England and Wales, but for the handful of families it happens to, the consequences can be devastating — and the experts behind the figures warn the true scale is likely far higher, since fraud attempts that are caught before completion often go unrecorded.
Read more...Posted on July 16, 2026
It's a fact that surprises most people the first time they hear it: anyone in England and Wales can call themselves a "will writer," advertise their services, and charge people to draft a legally binding document deciding who inherits their home, savings, and possessions — with no qualifications, no insurance, and no regulator overseeing them at all. Concerns about exactly this gap led the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate the unregulated will-writing sector, after complaints about misleading advertising, unfair contract terms, and pressure-selling to vulnerable customers. With more people than ever making a will at home or online, it's worth understanding what that lack of regulation actually means for your family.
Read more...Posted on July 12, 2026
Nationwide cut its mortgage rates for the third time in a month last week. Yorkshire Building Society went one better, cutting twice in a single week. Across the market, fixed rates fell by as much as 0.26% in just seven days as lenders scrambled to undercut one another. If you've been sitting on the fence about moving house or remortgaging, this is the kind of week that should get your attention.
Read more...Posted on July 10, 2026
A new Housing Mobility Report published this week found that 28% of owner-occupiers who've delayed a house move named stamp duty as the main reason. According to the report's authors, scrapping the tax altogether could bring more than 300,000 homes onto the market within a year — and over 750,000 within three. A cross-party Parliamentary committee is now pushing the government to launch a formal consultation on alternatives to stamp duty before the end of 2026.
Read more...Posted on July 10, 2026
New HMRC guidance published this week has laid bare just how complicated the government's plan to bring pensions into inheritance tax actually is — prompting solicitors to warn of "chaos" for the executors who will have to make it work. From 6 April 2027, most unused pension funds and death benefits will count towards the value of your estate for inheritance tax purposes for the first time. If you're likely to be named as an executor for a family member, or you're planning your own estate, this is a change worth understanding well before it takes effect.
Read more...Posted on July 9, 2026
From 13 July 2026, the fee to apply for a grant of probate in England and Wales rises from £300 to £526 — a jump of more than 75% in a single change. If you're currently gathering paperwork to apply for probate, or expect to be handling a loved one's estate in the coming weeks, the date on your application could make a real difference to what you pay.
Read more...Posted on July 8, 2026
When the government launched its consultation on cohabiting couples' rights on 5 June 2026, it drew attention not just to what happens when a relationship ends — but to what can go wrong when a partner dies. Under England and Wales' current intestacy rules, an unmarried partner who dies without leaving a will passes nothing at all to their surviving partner. Not automatically, and not easily.
For a couple who may have shared a home, raised children, and built a life together over decades, this is a legal reality that many people simply do not know exists — until it is too late to do anything about it.
Read more...Posted on July 8, 2026
On 5 June 2026, the government launched a consultation called "A Fairer End to Relationships" — a title that says a great deal about what has gone wrong until now. For decades, millions of cohabiting couples in England and Wales have lived together under the false belief that they have automatic legal rights over property, finances, and assets when a relationship ends. They don't. Now, for the first time in a generation, that could be about to change.
Resolution — the professional body representing more than 6,500 family law solicitors — described the announcement as "a welcome and significant step towards ending the endemic unfairness for cohabiting couples."
Read more...Posted on July 8, 2026
Zoopla's latest house price data, published on 30 June 2026, confirms what many buyers and sellers have been sensing for months: the property market has lost momentum. Annual house price inflation has slowed to just 1.4%, sales agreed are down 7% year-on-year, and three in five homes listed since January remain unsold. In London, prices have actually fallen — by 0.2% — for the ninth month in a row.
That's quite a shift from the post-pandemic years. For anyone in the middle of a move, or thinking about one, this data is worth understanding carefully before you act.
Read more...Posted on July 8, 2026
If you've been saving in a Lifetime ISA to help buy your first home, a significant change is on the horizon. On 23 June 2026, the government released consultation proposals to replace the Lifetime ISA with a brand-new First-Time Buyer ISA — and MoneySavingExpert founder Martin Lewis has been at the forefront of making sense of what it means in practice.
The changes are not yet law. But with a consultation deadline in mid-August and a possible launch date of April 2027, first-time buyers need to understand their options now — especially if they're actively saving or planning to buy in the next year or two.
Read more...Posted on July 8, 2026
From 13 July 2026, the fee for filing a court document rises by 27%, from £11 to £14. It sounds like a small change, but for anyone going through divorce proceedings, it's one more cost on top of a family court system where the average wait from application to final financial order has stretched to 74 weeks — well over a year. If you're separating, or already mid-proceedings, the combination of rising fees and lengthening waits is worth understanding now.
Read more...Posted on June 18, 2026
The Ministry of Justice made headlines last week when it launched a consultation that could transform the legal standing of an estimated 3.5 million unmarried couples in England and Wales. For the first time, the government is formally considering giving cohabitants automatic inheritance rights, stronger financial protections on separation, and the option to make legally binding prenuptial agreements — rights that married couples have long taken for granted.
Read more...Posted on June 16, 2026
When Justine Fernandes and her brother began sorting through their mother's estate after her death, they did what many grieving families do: they estimated what everything was worth, submitted those figures to HMRC, and paid their inheritance tax bill. The total came to £8,000. The problem was that the correct bill should have been just £1,400. They had overpaid by £6,600 — not through dishonesty, but through the very common mistake of overvaluing household belongings based on sentiment rather than market reality. Their story, published this week by Which?, is far from unusual.
Read more...Posted on June 16, 2026
It used to be that stamp duty was barely a concern for most first-time buyers. Not any more. New research published this week shows that 30% of first-time buyers in England are now purchasing homes above the stamp duty threshold — double the proportion from a decade ago. In London, the picture is even starker: 78% of first-time buyers are now paying stamp duty, with an average bill of £12,690. Even in the North West and West Midlands, growing numbers of buyers are crossing the threshold for the first time.
Read more...Posted on June 11, 2026
Over four million residential leaseholders in England and Wales are set to benefit from a significant policy change after the government announced this week that the ground rent cap will be implemented in late 2027 — a full year earlier than originally planned. The final legislation is expected to pass before Parliament's summer recess this July, making this one of the most concrete pieces of leasehold reform to reach the statute book in years.
Read more...Posted on June 11, 2026
When Justine Fernandes and her brother began sorting through their mother's estate after her death, they did what many grieving families do: they estimated what everything was worth, submitted those figures to HMRC, and paid their inheritance tax bill. The total came to £8,000. The problem was that the correct bill should have been just £1,400. They had overpaid by £6,600 — not through dishonesty, but through the very common mistake of overvaluing household belongings based on sentiment rather than market reality. Their story, published this week by Which?, is far from unusual.
Read more...Posted on June 8, 2026
The government has extended the Family Mediation Voucher Scheme and launched a suite of new digital tools to support separating families — news that will matter to thousands of couples currently facing difficult decisions about children, finances, and their futures without wanting to end up in a courtroom. If you are going through a separation or divorce, this scheme may help you resolve things more quickly, more affordably, and with less lasting damage to everyone involved.
Read more...Posted on June 5, 2026
Government figures released this week reveal the average UK house price has stalled at £268,000 — and that number tells only part of the story. Residential property transactions have fallen 40.9% compared to the same period last year, painting a picture of a market that many buyers and sellers are quietly stepping back from. If you are thinking about moving in 2026, understanding what this data actually means in practice is more useful than the headline figure alone.
Read more...Posted on June 3, 2026
Irwin Mitchell's exit from the budget wills market is a timely prompt for anyone who made a will through a supermarket, bank, or online template to check whether it actually protects what they think it does.
Read more...Posted on June 2, 2026
For thousands of homeowners still trapped on eye-watering standard variable rates since the financial crisis, the name of their lender has changed again — but their situation has not. In October 2025, around 13,000 mortgage prisoners held by Co-op Bank's inactive subsidiaries were transferred to Aspiro Mortgages, a trading name of Topaz Finance and yet another inactive lender. One affected borrower captured the reality plainly: "We have truly struggled and had to rely on foodbanks. All our money has to go towards the mortgage."
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