Will remote court hearings be permitted?
Court hearings have been conducted remotely, with the judgment in Kerry v SSCLG being given via telephone. The Senior President of Tribunals issued emergency Practice Directions which will apply to Property and Lands Chambers’ respectively. This has made provision for remote hearings. Inspections of properties have been suspended with immediate effect, with photographs, videos or external visits permitted where appropriate. Where inspections are essential, the case should be stayed.
Related FAQs
Mortuaries are a sui generis use, unless ancillary to some other use of land, a hospital for example.
Sui generis uses are not within any Use Class. Consequently planning permission is required for the:
- Change in the use to a sui generis use
- Subsequently for the change in the use to an alternative use, whether that be another sui generis use or a use within a Use Class
Acknowledging the above, if the scale of the use is above de minimis, planning permission is likely to be required to change the use of a warehouse or factory unit into a temporary mortuary.
Should planning control be breached, a local planning authority must decide whether to take enforcement action or not. That enforcement is discretionary was recently reiterated in a Ministerial Statement issued on 13 March 2020 a link to which is below.
Depending on the form of the enforcement action, there could be a right of appeal.
We don’t recommend this. Status determination statements must be issued before 6 April 2021 for current engagements and the appropriate deductions are to be made on payments for services carried out on or after 6 April 2021.
If it is not possible to find work for the employee to do at home, you do have the option of putting the employee on furlough.
You should have in place a dispute resolution procedure that sets out the appeal process or contractors or the agency as appropriate. You must respond to an appeal within 45 days.
If the status determination is disputed you should consider the contractor or agency’s reasons objections. You must consider if the original determination is to be maintained and give reasons for this. Or a new determination with reasons can be provided if appropriate.
Records of disputed determinations and the outcome of any appeal should be kept.
The best advice is that parties should proceed as they would have done before the crisis began.