Collings Solicitors news

30/05/23

A couple accused of deliberately building their extension two inches into their neighbours' garden to "annoy" them are facing a six-figure legal bill.

45-year-old Shabaz Ashraf and his wife Shakira, 40, estimate they spent £80,000 ripping down a 1970s extension at the back of their house and replacing it with a modern one - only to have the couple next door complain that it was over the boundary between their properties.

28/04/23

A farmer has been jailed for 12 months after he dredged a stretch of Herefordshire river in an effort to save nearby homes from flooding.

In 2020, 68-year-old John Price worked over 200 hours at weekends and into the evenings to remove gravel and silt from a stretch of the River Lugg. He had argued that the work was necessary to prevent further flooding of properties in the village of Kingsland. Homes in the area were flooded during Storm Dennis in early 2020, but spared in January 2021 when Storm Christoph hit.

30/03/23

A national insurer has said dogs have been a factor in nearly 4,000 accidental damage claims over the past five years, said Aviva.

Claims included a nine-stone rottweiler that stood on a mobile phone, breaking it, and a dog that ate its owner's dentures. People also reported items lost while walking their dog such as watches, hearing aids, wallets, and jewellery - with one customer losing their wedding ring as they threw a ball for their pet.

27/02/23

In a legal first, an amateur rugby player has won a payout of up to £10 million after her opponent flattened her "like a frog" and left her paralysed from the waist down.

The High Court heard that 34-year-old Dani Czernuszka suffered a broken spine in October 2017 after Natasha King "frog-splatted" her in an "illegal" tackle during an amateur league rugby match between the Reading Sirens and Bracknell Ladies teams.

30/01/23

Amid concern that middle-aged women were being pushed out of the workplace because employers did not support those struggling with symptoms, campaigners had called for menopause to be made a protected characteristic in the same way as religion or race.

Last summer, warning that the UK was "haemorrhaging talent" because of a failure to support women in midlife, the Commons women and equalities committee called for radical changes in discrimination laws. The cross-party group of MPs also called for "menopause leave" for those suffering from the most debilitating symptoms, which can include anxiety, mood changes, hot flushes and insomnia.