HJ Talks About Charities

Roman Kubiak and Sarah Bolt in the Contested Wills, Trusts and Estates team at Hugh James discuss recent cases which might be of interest to Legacy Teams.

In our first episode of 2021, our Partner and Head of Contested Wills, Trusts and Estates, Roman Kubiak TEP and Senior Associate, Sarah Bolt take a look at the technical issues in charity law.

What is a serious incident, how do we test for it, what should we report and what shouldn’t we report? These are just some of the questions that charity trustees ask themselves. In December 2019, the Charity Commission released new guidance for charity trustees on when to report serious incidents involving a charity’s partners - read more about this guidance in our blog here. 

Following on from the guidance being released, Roman Kubiak, Head of Legacy, will & estate disputes and Vlad Macdonald-Munteanu, Associate, explore this guidance and offer their thoughts on how to test if an incident is serious, the reporting requirements and more. 

With issues of discrimination hitting the headlines on a daily basis surrounding the treatment of the Duchess of Sussex, Laurence Fox’s BBC Questiontime appearance and more, we ask what exactly can organisations do when an informal chat at the tea point turns into a formal allegation of race discrimination? What language is appropriate? Who decides what is reasonable? Is motive irrelevant?

Joined by Kate Walsh, Associate in our Employment and HR Services team and Ruth Coombs, Head of Wales for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, our podcast explores the latest furore and discuss what organisations can do to create the right culture for an equal workplace.

Rarely has a piece of legislation caused such a backlash from the business and contractor community as IR35 (Off-payroll Working Rules), an anti-tax avoidance rule that applies to all contractors and freelancers who do not fall under HM Revenue & Customs’ definition of being self-employed. From April 2020, every medium and large private sector business in the UK will become responsible for setting the tax status – or IR35 – of any contract worker they use, as is already the case in the public sector. The test for employment status has always been a complex area and this change will oblige organisations to consider all their contracts in a new light to avoid being liable for hefty tax bills. In this podcast, we are joined by Sali Owens from Hugh James’ Employment and HR Services team to unpick the complexities and reveal the real impact of these changes.

Tune in to find out more.

With a possible £400 million bill for charities in the UK to pick up, this podcast discussing the landmark ruling in Royal Mencap Society v Tomlinson-Blake is essential listening for the third sector. The forthcoming decision relates to social care workers on "sleep-in shifts", whereby they provide overnight on-call support to patients but are expected to sleep through the majority of the shift. Join our conversation with Louise Price, Head of our Employment and HR services team, to fully understand the implications for your organisation.

Tune in to find out more.

Roman Kubiak, Head of Contested Wills, Trusts and Estates and Vlad Macdonald-Munteanu, Associate, discuss their recent activities, from charity collecting with Macmillan to supporting the WCVA Welsh Charity Awards.

Roman's recent attendance at a panel session - Securing the Future of Legacy Giving at Marie Curie, part of their One Love Fundraising Festival, sees them both look at 5 hot topics when it comes to legacy giving for charities:

1. Key factors and trends which have given rise to legacy disputes over the past ten years.
2. Targeting the younger generation through the new and cutting-edge online wills offering.
3. Managing brand and reputation, following the negative publicity from the recent sector scandals; Olive Cooke, President’s Club and Oxfam.
4. The need for charities to protect, secure and recover assets properly belonging to them and the duty for both charities and their trustees to bring and defend legal proceedings where the circumstances justify it.*
5. How people leave their legacies: restrictive gifts in wills and the dangers when not drafted correctly.

Tune in to find out more.

_{*Check out this useful guidance note from the Charity Commission to help trustees faced with potential litigation: Charities and litigation: a guide for trustees}

Will the third sector be expected to plug the gap in social care and in the provision of public services, that can't be met by local authorities and the government, where the funding isn't in place?

Following on from the recent General Election, Roman Kubiak, Head of Contested Wills, Trusts and Estates and Vlad Macdonald-Munteanu, Associate, review the Tory manifesto and discuss what this will mean for the Charity sector.

Tune in to find out more.

Recent figures estimate that charities have been denied donations worth £185 million due to chaos in the probate system. Emma Poole, Client Relationship Manager, sat down with Eleanor Evans, Partner and Head of Trusts and Estates Administration, to find out what has caused the logjam, the impact it has had for our range of clients and what we can expect over the coming months.

Tune in to find out more.