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Businesses urged to beware of cowboy rating surveyors

Your Witness FPB logoSmall businesses are being urged to be wary of ‘cowboy’ rating surveyors attempting to profiteer from the recent rates revaluation.

The Forum of Private Business (FPB) has issued the warning after experiencing a surge in calls from members complaining about rogue operators. The FPB believes the problem has come about due to the recent revaluation, which decided how much businesses will have to pay in rates over the next five years.

Commercial landlords’ guarantees not as solid as previously thought

Your Witness osborne clarke logoMIKE GUTSELL of Osborne Clarke in Bristol summarises the implications of the recent judgement regarding AGAs

The summary judgement in Good Harvest Partnership LLP v Centaur Services Limited contains worrying news for commercial landlords. The judgment clarified†the interpretation of  the Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1995, particularly the role of Authorised Guarantee Agreements (AGAs).

What place do maps have in law – and why have an expert?

by Carl Calvert of Calvert Consulting

The obvious place for maps in law is to define boundaries of some sort, property boundaries being the most obvious. Another purpose is to map an alleged route a defendant took or could not have taken in a criminal case. Generally, the overriding purpose is to show, on a piece of paper or computer screen, a representation of the ground to a court.

Expert witness fires up new fingerprint technique in the states

A leading scientist, called in to help break a series of unsolved crimes, is to fire up his pioneering ‘bullet casing’ fingerprint invention before American forensic experts.

Dr John Bond, Scientific Support Manager at Northamptonshire Police and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Leicester Forensic Research Centre, discovered a way of visualising corrosion patterns etched by human sweat into the surfaces of bomb and ammunition casings when handled.