My mum remarried. She has now passed away and has left everything to my step-dad. I am worried that he will not leave me anything when he dies. Can my step-dad write me out of the Will?

That will depend on the terms of your facility and the stance taken by your bank.

Banking facilities often place obligations on businesses to stick to certain financial criteria. For example, an obligation to keep turnover or profit above certain levels or a commitment to keep the bank’s exposure within an agreed percentage of the value of the company’s assets (known as loan to value ratio).

The consequences of breaching those covenants will depend on the terms of your facility, but normally this amounts to an event of default. Events of default can result in the loan (or whatever form the facility takes) becoming repayable and could give the bank certain powers to take action to recover the money that they are owed.

Whether the bank will take action during these unprecedented times is another matter, particularly given the extent of support being offered to businesses via mainstream lenders and the political desire to keep viable businesses up and running. Lenders themselves will no doubt wish to remain supportive where possible. The underlying performance of the business (and whether but for the effects of Covid-19 it would have been in a healthy financial position), the relationship you have with the bank and your history with them will no doubt be relevant to the approach taken by the bank. However, early engagement with your bank (as well as other key stakeholders in the business) will be important.

You will claim a pro rata’d amount of 80% of salary, based on the proportion of hours not worked out of the employee’s normal working hours (their “usual” hours).

There are 2 ways to calculate an employee’s usual hours, depending on whether they have fixed or variable hours/pay:

• For those with fixed hours/pay, you take the number of hours worked in the pay period before 19 March 2020.
• For those with variable hours/pay, you take the higher of:

1. the average number of hours worked in the tax year 2019 to 2020 or
2. the corresponding calendar period in the tax year 2019 to 2020.

If employees are paid per task or piece of work done, you should work out the usual hours for these employees in the same way as for other employees who work variable hours, if possible.

When you calculate the usual hours, you should include any hours of leave for which they were paid their full contracted rate (such as annual leave) and any hours worked as overtime (but only if the pay for those hours was not discretionary).

Data on properties, and people, has never been more important.

Given that compliance is at risk here, such a decision must be made by the Board to ensure good governance. Board approval should be sought and recorded for the approach the organisation is taking.

It is essential that you continue to record your data on compliance and report to your board at all times, and that there is a clear audit trail for issues with access, and if appropriate to the Regulator. Access issues as a result of self-isolation should be readily identifiable.

Operatives need to be provided with the tools to operate in as safe a way as possible:

• Checklist of questions to ascertain occupant’s current health
• Protective equipment (masks, gloves, over clothing)

The Gas Safe website is a useful resource for updates: https://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/help-and-advice/covid-19-advice-and-guidance/

Matrimonial assets tend to be those which have been generated or accumulated during the marriage whereas non-matrimonial assets tend to be assets which are acquired outside of the marriage such as assets owned before marriage or assets received by one party during the marriage without contribution from the other such as through inheritance or a gift.

The discretion of the court when making financial awards is wide ranging and the way the court will deal with this distinction varies from case to case so it is always important to seek advice about your particular circumstances. However, in broad principles, any asset which is “matrimonial” in nature is usually shared unless there is good reason not to. If an asset is non-matrimonial, an argument could be raised that there ought to be a departure from an equal share of the asset to reflect the fact it is from a source external to the marriage. However:

• If financial resources are limited such that a party’s needs cannot be met without using the non-matrimonial property, the fact it is non-matrimonial will carry little weight, if any.
• The family home is seen as core to the marriage and is often treated differently. It is invariably treated as a matrimonial asset even if it would have been non-matrimonial in nature.
• If a non-matrimonial asset has been intermingled with a matrimonial asset, a court may place less weight on the fact it started as non-matrimonial in nature.
• If the parties were married for a short period of time, a court may place greater weight on the fact that an asset is non-matrimonial and may be persuaded to allow a greater departure from equality than if the parties have been married for a long period of time.

The court will always have a mind to fairness and is likely to take a step back and consider whether the overall division of the assets is “fair” bearing in mind the parties respective financial and non-financial contributions to the marriage.

• Start critical care treatment with a clear plan of how the treatment will address the diagnosis and lead to agreed outcomes.
• Review critical care treatment regularly and when the patient’s clinical condition changes.
• Stop critical care treatment when it is no longer considered able to achieve the desired outcomes. Record the decision and the discussion with family, carers and the patient (if possible).