Many employers take steps to ensure that their staff undertake equality and diversity training within their organisations. Employers can also use this as a defence in any discrimination claims to say they have taken all “reasonable steps” to ensure that no discrimination takes place within their organisation.

However, a recent case of Allay (UK) Ltd v Gehlen, the EAT has held that an employment tribunal was entitled to reject an employer’s ‘reasonable steps’ defence to a claim of racial harassment. Although the perpetrator of the

The past few months has seen the roll out of the Covid-19 vaccination across the UK and while the availability and speed of the process is being questioned daily in the press, one issue which we have seen brought the foreground of discussions amongst clients is whether or not they can mandate their staff to have this vaccination.

Many employers are likely to encourage their staff to take up the vaccine, but the issue of whether this can become mandatory is an interesting one from

The Sheriff Appeal Court has just issued a decision which will be of significance to RSLs throughout Scotland. It concerns the operation of the “streamlined” eviction process in terms of ground 2 in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 designed to be used when tenants are convicted of criminal offences committed in or near the rented property.

Since May 2019, 2019, the “reasonableness” test has been removed from this ground meaning that the court must grant an eviction where the ground is established. However the government

The Scottish Information Commissioner (SIC) has recently published one of the first decision notices on an RSL’s handling of a FOI request.

Whilst the decision notice (which can be viewed here) does not answer some of the bigger questions the sector has about their new FOI duties it does act as a reminder of some key aspects of FOI compliance. So, what can RSLs learn from this decision?

What was the decision about?

The decision concerned a failure to respond to a request for

Young adults who lack capacity – guardianship orders

Any parent of a young adult who lacks capacity and is approaching 16, or has just turned 16, should take advice on whether they should apply for a guardianship order.  Until the age of 16 you have been able to make decisions on behalf of your child.  On turning 16 that automatic delegation of decision making to you, as their parent, comes to an end.  

There may be various matters you have to assist with. For example

Historic position

Historically when a disabled proprietor wanted to make an alteration to the common parts of a tenement to allow them to continue to use and enjoy their home by, for example, introducing a stair lift, access ramp or additional handrails by dint of the Common Law they required the consent and agreement of all other owners in the tenement to permit the change.  The introduction of the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 failed to provide a simplified mechanism for approving such improvement or alteration

None of us could have imagined that almost a year after we first heard the words “Covid-19” that we would still be under such restrictions, the impact this would have on the NHS and the long term effects of Covid-19.

Hearing so many families losing loved ones and the long-term effect Covid-19 has had on their lives is distressing.  However it does highlight the importance of having a Power of Attorney in place.  Too often we hear of a husband and wife with separate bank

We recently sent an update to confirm that evictions were being banned until 22 January 2021 - unless your Decree was granted on ground 2 and/or 7 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001, as amended. This is where Decree was for Antisocial Behaviour (ASB) and/or where there was a conviction.
 
It has now been announced that the existing ban will be extended until 31 March 2021. Like the previous ban it will not apply to Decrees for eviction which are granted on the ground of ASB or a conviction.

The Scottish Government announced that between 11 December 2020 and 22 January 2021, there is to be a full ban on evictions being carried out in Scotland. The ban will last for a period of six weeks and will apply to all evictions (except in cases of anti-social behaviour relating to Ground 2, Ground 7 or Ground 8 detailed in the Schedule 2 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001).

What does this mean?
No evictions on other grounds can proceed during the six-week period.
 
However, where

To do list:           

Prepare a Will                                                                       

Prepare a Power of Attorney    

For most people preparing a Will and Power of Attorney are tasks that are on their never ending “to do” list and, for some, it is one task that continually gets pushed to the bottom of the list as day

Life has changed dramatically for us all since March 2020.  We had hoped that we would be getting “back to normal” sometime soon – would any of us have thought we would still be living under restrictions more than 8 months later?

Many of us have put things off, vowing that we will do this “when we get back to normal”.  

For now the new “normal”, for a large proportion of us, means:

• working from home
• adapting to new ways of working
• flexible

This lunchtime, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announced that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) will remain open until 31 March 2021, which will allow employers to furlough employees until that point. For claim periods running to January 2021, employees will receive 80% of their usual salary for hours not worked, up to a maximum of £2,500 per month. This means the Scheme is more generous than the scheme running in September and October. The percentage may be reviewed for February and March, presumably reducing on

A Lifetime ISA, or ‘LISA’ as they’re regularly referred to, offers a similar deal to Help to Buy ISAs but with considerable differences which you should watch out for or take advantage of. Some people may be taking advantage of a LISA to save for later in life (over 60), however there are benefits of using a LISA to purchase a property as a first-time buyer. If you wish you can always keep your LISA after purchasing your first property and continue to save

New reforms to boost hearing capacity in employment tribunals have been introduced at Westminster with the aim to hear more cases and allow for greater flexibility in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the changes being made will allow the judiciary the option of deploying non-employment judges into employment tribunals and will also allow employment judges who normally sit in England and Wales to sit in Scotland and vice versa.

Announcing the reforms, Business Minister Paul Scully said: "The employment tribunal system has held

Short Terms Lets and Airbnb have become a contentious matter in Scotland in recent times. The Scottish Government have recently conducted research into Airbnbs and Short-Term Lets in Scotland which confirmed there are 31,884 active Airbnb listings, three times as many compared to 2016.

It was found that in Edinburgh’s City Centre 16.7% of properties are being used as Short Term Lets equating to an estimated 140,000 visitors to the area per year, around 4.5 times the local resident population.

The increasing popularity of Airbnbs

If an employee is being made redundant they will be entitled to a period of notice and, for those with at least two years’ service, a statutory redundancy payment.  They should also be paid in respect of accrued but untaken holidays, if appropriate.

Statutory redundancy payments can be relatively small therefore some employers offer a payment in excess of the statutory minimum – usually called enhanced redundancy payments.  This can be offered for a variety of reasons: 

• it may be that it forms part of

The Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020 (Eviction from Dwelling-houses) (Notice Periods) Modification Regulations 2020 are expected to come into force 3 October 2020. 

We previously blogged about the extension of notice periods introduced by the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020. The link can be found here.

The purpose of these new Regulations is to reduce the extended notice periods for eviction grounds relating to antisocial behaviour and criminal convictions to 28 days in both the private and social rented sector.

New proposed notice periods for:

Private

The Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020 (Eviction from Dwelling-houses) (Notice Periods) Modification Regulations 2020 are expected to come into force 3 October 2020. 

We previously blogged about the extension of notice periods introduced by the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020. The link can be found here.

The purpose of these new Regulations is to reduce the extended notice periods for eviction grounds relating to antisocial behaviour and criminal convictions to 28 days in both the private and social rented sector.

The new proposed notice periods are:

• 4

A number of  RSL clients have been in touch with us recently to enquire whether there is a current ban on evictions in Scotland.

The extensive publicity suggesting that such a ban exists is misleading. There is no law in Scotland which prevents evictions taking place.

The most recent publicity has stemmed from the Scottish Government’s plans to consider extending the application of the extended notice periods beyond the original end date of 30 September 2020.

Currently the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020 provides that our

Many of you may have seen the latest headlines regarding the #FreeBritneySpears movement where her fans are concerned about her father acting as her Conservator. Conservatorship is an American legal concept whereby the court appoints a person to manage a person’s affairs if they are deemed to be incapable.

The equivalent of Conservatorship in Scotland is known as Guardianship. A Guardianship Order is a court order which authorises a person to act and make decisions on behalf of an Adult with incapacity. In Scotland, an