Author: Catherine Bates

We all know the saying that you get what you pay for. I say it often when talking to clients about fees, particularly on conveyancing costs.  We do it all on a fixed fee basis, but we are not the cheapest and we do not aim to be.  We are aiming to provide a good […]

  As solicitors, we always feel we live in interesting times. There are always unusual cases coming along, like being instructed to defend an injunction, where the applicant was trying to stop my client building a house, only there was no house being built.  Turned out the other side were looking at the wrong bit […]

  Life is unpredictable. In fact, the only thing that you can predict, is that the unexpected can happen at any moment.  Like coming downstairs and finding that your teenage child, having used up the last of the milk, didn’t put the empty carton back in the fridge but actually threw it away AND popped […]

It’s been an interesting week. Considering I’m writing this just before the Jubilee bank holiday weekend is about to start, the fact that it’s only been a three day week only means that I’ve packed the usual amount of “interesting” into a shorter than normal period of time. This week the theme seems to have […]

I often talk about the need to have insurance, which is not just limited to an actual insurance policy, but also includes the things that you can do (and avoid doing) to give yourself better protection in life. For example, I’m a big advocate of things like pre nuptial agreements, shareholder agreements and contracts of […]

  If you hear the sound of trotting outside… don’t assume it’s a horse because it could be a zebra. Ok, I know it’s fairly unlikely to be a zebra, so assuming that it’s a horse that you can hear is fairly reasonable, but if experience has taught me anything it’s to never take things […]

  Today I’ve had two young men fighting over me. You may think that’s normal, but since my youngest son turned 10 it’s not been as common as it used to be. The two young men in question were on a central line train and were arguing about who was going to give their seat […]

    I was bought up believing in the mars venus principle.  That the reason for many arguments, divorces and possibly even wars was because men and women don’t understand each other.  They speak a different language. I no longer believe that. Or rather, it’s not about men and women specifically.  It’s that PEOPLE don’t […]

  I know that lockdown was a disaster for some, and a blessing for others. Some have spent years building up businesses only to see them destroyed over night by closures. Others have reaped the benefits of people being stuck at home needing their goods and services. I’m probably somewhere in the middle. For me […]

Some improvements don’t always make things better and in some cases, we actually make it harder. I’m old enough to remember what the litigation world looked like before the Court Procedure Rules were introduced in 1999.  I know I don’t look it, but that’s just down to a great beauty regime, not to mention regular […]