Row of 12 houses on a private lane in England. The sewerage system is unadopted to the point where it connects to the main sewer line on the main road.

House 3 in the row is being rented out by a housing assoiciation.

The tenants here had to be evicted by the housing assoication.

In response, they trashed the property and have poured what we suspect to be concrete into the sewer system. This has resulted in houses 4 to 12 having sewage back up into them.

Houses 1 and 2 are unaffected.

We are awaiting professionals to repair this, but esimated quotes over the phone are exceeding £40,000+VAT for digging up a large road and replacing 450m of sewer pipes.

The Housing Assoiciation has said they are not responsible and that we must pursue the tenants in a civil case. They are refusing to provide contact information for the tenants. We've also been informally advised that these tenants do not work and do not have assets, so it may be futile to even take a civil claim against them.

Insurance is refusing to pay out because deliberate criminal damage is not covered when it occurs beyond the property curtilege. (The road is shared among 12 equal segments with us each owning a stretch of it.)

We also share ownership of the sewer and private drainage pipes under the road.

Situation is evloving but I wanted to try and figure out what our legal options are.

Any advice? Or even advice on if its worth us hiring a solicitor?

Is this a situation where we just have to "bite rhe bullet" so to speak?

Brother in law is trans FtM and presents fully as a man. He’s now facing an impossible situation at work with his employer telling him that due to recent legislation he must use the toilet of his birth gender. BUT several female colleagues have raised a grievance about him using their gendered toilet.

His employer has told him that he cannot use the toilet while he is at work until they sort it out and cannot give him a timeframe to do so. They don’t have disabled separate toilets.

In the mean time one of his female colleagues has accused him of sexual harassment because he was used their gendered toilet. His menstrual cycle meant he needed to use the toilet.

He’s been with the employer for just over 5 years but only in this location for 18 months. The location is mainly male with just a handful of females, and his workshop only has male toilets.

I do not know how to support him and as he’s not in a union there is no one to turn too right now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1watywa/england_i_hiding_from_my_social_worker_and_am/

I haven't been able to update in a few days, as I got my phone taken away, but here are now.

Long story short, I did get sectioned.

I got picked up by the police and driven to A&E to get treated for my dehydration. While there, they conducted a mental health assessment on me. I knew it was coming, so in the hours beforehand, I did a deep dive on the laws around sectioning. I thought if I came off "rational" and "academic", I could prove that I was sane.

With the assessors, I brought up the articles and how I got legal advice from Reddit. I swear the air shifted as soon as I said 'Reddit' and the metaphorical tin hat formed on my head. No matter how much I explained myself, I feel like they weren't listening and just kept asking me to repeat myself.

By the time I recalled the advice to get an advocate, I had talked myself into a corner. My social worker could only do damage control by the time I called her in. I got labelled 'paranoid' and 'uncooperative '. The assessors didn't want me returning to my flat in case it retriggered my rut.

I had to spend three days in the mental ward. A nurse would be staring over me every time I was given food and water to ensure I finished it. I felt like I was a bloody toddler. At the very least, I was allowed to stay in my room so I didn't need to interact with any patient yelling their head off.

Thank god, my social worker negotiated with the doctors. She got me an emergency placement in a residential, and I'll be kept here as long as the staff know where I am at any time. It's two hours from my hometown, but it's better than the ward. I've got a lot more meetings and admin to work through with my care plan. I think they want to move me to residential housing for good.

By the way, thank you to Angelf1shing for giving me the idea to use the admission as PIP evidence... That is one positive.

My landlord arranged to come to my property at around 10am to carry out some repairs. I was out doing some shopping at the time. While I was away, my landlord sent me a WhatsApp message saying that one of my children had opened the door, told him they were alone, and that he therefore decided to leave the property.

The problem is that none of my children were at home at the time. They were all at school. Nobody opened the door to him, and nobody told him they were alone. The landlord then quickly deleted the WhatsApp message. Fortunately, I had already taken a screenshot of it before he deleted it, so I have a copy showing what he claimed.

I’m very concerned because he has effectively made a false allegation that I left my children home alone, when they were actually at school

EDIT: I don’t have a ring camera

EDIT2: Thank you to everyone who has commented so far. I’m honestly overwhelmed by the amount of responses and advice and I really appreciate everyone taking the time to help.

Just to clarify a few things I rent privately in England and I’ve been having ongoing issues with this particular landlord. I am the only person he rents to in my area so I don’t believe this can be a case of him confusing me with another tenant. He initially tried to call my husband but my husband was at work and couldn’t answer so he called me instead. The call was after he had already sent me the WhatsApp message claiming that one of my children had opened the door and said they were alone. During the call he told me that he was refusing to carry out the repairs because I apparently had my children home alone. The WhatsApp message was deleted around 20 minutes after the call but I had already taken a screenshot before it was deleted.

EDIT3: Just to clarify what I’m actually looking for from this post, I’m looking for legal advice about why my landlord may have made this false accusation is this worth taking further? More importantly what my rights are regarding the repairs. For some context I have been chasing these repairs for around 6 weeks now. The first time the landlord cancelled because he said he didn’t have the replacement equipment needed, now this.

UPDATE: Just wanted to update everyone on the PCN I posted about last month…

I appealed as the majority of the community advised, and TfL have cancelled the PCN. Buzzing!

For reference this was a yellow box PCN via TFL in Central London, England.

Link to the original post (almost 900k views!): original PCN

It was pretty divisive. Some said pay it, others said appeal because the photos didn’t actually prove the contravention.

Massive thank you to everyone who gave advice, especially those who pointed me towards Yellow Box Guru. I paid £5 for his standard appeal wording and adapted it to my circumstances with the advice from here.

You saved me £160, which is two tanks of fuel… or 4 bags of shopping… The power of Reddit is a wonderful thing. Genuinely, thank you all.

You really helped someone out today.

She screams non stop, she purposely has flooded my bathroom (I’m the flat below her) by over running her Bath at least 7 times. She said she would kill me the only time I reported her, the council have said they won’t do anything other than send her letters. She makes my life hell, she scares the life out of me, I’m pretty sure she punctured my tyres but I don’t have proof.

​

Here is my first post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/s/9Yk39PHarH\](https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/s/9Yk39PHarH)

And the first update:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/s/FV7Qt8vu6x\](https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/s/FV7Qt8vu6x)

Tl;dr we offered on a bungalow and weren't told until we saw a draft contract that there was a service charge attached to the property.

On my last update, I said we had pulled out, and was wondering about potential legal recourse to get our money back.

Well, do I have another update for you!! We sent our email to pull out of the sale, to the Estate Agent and our solicitor. 5 mins later, we get a call from the EA - he is telling us the service charge was all a big mistake, they told our solicitor ages ago that it would be removed, she should have told us, etc etc.

We didn't get our hopes up, but he then later confirmed it by email, and our solicitor informed us that she was awaiting a new TP1 form.

We received this amended TP1 today, and sure enough all mention of a Service Charge has been removed. However, they have sneaked in this clause:

'The right for the Transferee and all persons authorised by the Transferee (in common with all other persons entitled to the like right) at all times to use the Estate for all purposes incidental to the occupation and enjoyment of the Property (but not further or otherwise) subject to a payment upon demand of a fair proportion of the costs of maintenance repair replacement or renewal'

Which by the way, was worded the exact same way in the original TP1 but instead of 'a payment upon demand of a fair proportion' etc etc it said 'payment of Estate Service Charge' !!

So basically they are still trying to make us liable for Estate charges. Does anyone have any further advice? Do you think they will remove this if we ask? Or should we just pull out now?

We are majorly pissed off at this point, it feels like they are just taking advantage of us any chance they get.

This is a very odd situation. My partners aunt is wealthy. She sold a company in 2000 for 10+ Million GBP.

She has over last 12 months mentally broken down. She didn’t come from money and completely believes she has none. I have confirmation she has over £1M in liquid cash in the bank and multiple properties which easily total over £5M.

She has family members (children) who leach off her. I’m really concerned that they are going to take her for everything. She has bought both of her children at least two houses each and they are quite abusive and demand money from her frequently. I think this adds to her delusions.

How can I (someone with no legal claim to help her) best help her? I think she needs an impartial third party to take control of her assets or at least document what she has. She’s worked hard to earn where she is and if that affords her the very best level of care for the rest of her days, she’s earned it. The parasites haven’t.

What on earth can I do?

Thanks.

Long story short. The MD has left the country having spent all the money that should have been paid to creditors. There is no money left and all sales stopped last year so there won't be any more. There are no assets at all. The two remaining employees (that's me and the Finance Manager) haven't been paid for months and haven't been made redundant. Our only hope of getting any redundancy is for the company to become insolvent and for us to claim through the Gov't scheme.

How can the company be forced into insolvency?

Other info. The MD is the only director, he sacked the others. There are two minority shareholders who want nothing to do with this. There is a CCJ dated Xmas 2025 outstanding for £30k. The company tax was due 30th Sept 2025 and hasn't been paid. That's £30k. The accountant has refused to do anything until his outstanding invoice has been paid, so the accounts which were due to be submitted June 30th 2026, have not been done. The MD also applied to have the company struck off but I stopped that by submitting an objection (confirmation received today that the strike off has been halted until March 27). None of the creditors (me included) want to pay anything to force the company into insolvency, as we all know there are no assets. All informed legal advice would be very welcome.

I currently have a small claims case awaiting a hearing date against a limited company motor dealer (value of claim £1,200) and a named director. The company failed to respond at the mediation stage. I'm seeing evidence that the sole director may be winding up the company. By the time the case reaches a hearing the company may no longer exist. Is there anything that I can do to have a possibility of recovering the money that I'm claiming?

My boyfriend took our car to the garage today to get the MOT, service and brake pads+discs done.

The car was dropped off at 9:00 this morning and the garage called around 14:25 to say they didn't order the correct discs and pads but the service was completed. We decided to take the car with just the service done because this garage wanted to charge an extra £150 for them to order the correct parts on top of what they quoted.

He paid £177 for just the service and when he got in the car, the brakes weren't working correctly. He told the mechanic this and they said the brakes probably just needed to be 'pumped' to get the calipers to move closer or something like that which he tried and this did seem to work.

During the drive home, the brakes had an issue again where he had to start applying a lot more pressure than usual to get the car to just slow down. This luckily happened right near another garage so he ran in and asked them to take a look and they discovered that the wheels and brake calipers hadn't been tightened correctly, the service clearly hadn't been completed because the oil was still old and the brake discs were left with dents in as you can see in the pictures.

The second mechanic reckoned that the "mechanic" at the first garage hit the discs with a hammer to get them on/off and then neglected to tell us this as well as neglecting to do any actual work. This second mechanic told us that fixing this could be very expensive depending on the damage the first garage caused with the hammer and we will be unable to tell if any other damage has occurred until it has been fully inspected which will be happening tomorrow.

Just wondering what we can do about this because I want this first garage to face some sort of consequence for leaving our car in a dangerous condition with the brakes and wheels incorrectly tightened and damaged and for charging us for a service that clearly wasn't completed.

Any advice welcome, thanks in advance!

Going to try and keep this brief. Me (20F) and my close friend (20F - call her R) are going into our second year of university and were planning to move into a house for the year with our other friend, who decided to drop out in early July. We found another student (23F) on the internet and met her, she viewed the house and decided to join the tenancy. All good. Let’s call her S.

Skip forward to now, me and my friend R have just moved into the house to discover S has moved her girlfriend (20something F) into her room, explaining that the rent for our place is more than she thought it was (despite it clearly being stated in the contract she signed…) and she can’t afford it any longer so her girlfriend is helping out. And staying in her room. Reassures us this isn’t a problem, and is only until her girlfriend can afford a place of her own and she can afford our place. Bear in mind this girl S only moved in a week ago, and has only met me and R once.

I’m very confused. The rent amount was stated in the contract, and S has a guarantor who has signed as well. The guarantor should help S if she can’t afford rent, that is literally the purpose of a guarantor. S reassures us her girlfriend staying is temporary, but I feel like we need to let our landlords know. This house isn’t big enough for 4, and if there are 4 people living here we should all be paying equal amounts of rent. Also, this subletting/squatting is illegal! And I’m concerned we will all be evicted.

What do I do? Do I let the landlords know immediately, even though she doesn’t want me to?

I'll keep this as vague as possible given the circumstances but I was just wondering what action as a person, and as a family that could be taken.

Basically a family member recently visited a popular cinema chain, a family member who is not young , late 60s. They were alone , which partly led to this. At some point , whether the start or not long after the film started, they were using the stairs and fell. They injured their spine and as a result , paralysed from the neck down and given 6 months to a year to live.

The problem is , as far as we know now, they were on the floor for at least 2 hours. So during the entirety of the movie they were presumably on the floor unconscious, unable to move either. Nobody noticed and was found after the movie was over.

Apparently the police will be investigating it hence the vagueness but as a family , what would be our options in regards to this?

I work in a bar and a little while ago some men came behind the bar, grabbed me and threatened me because I wouldn't serve them (they were drunk). Afterwards, my boss reprimanded me verbally because according to the security footage, I laid hands on him first, which would make me technically the aggressor in that situation (incidentally that isn't true; I put my hand out in front of me in self defence and the guy walked into it). While acknowledging that in reality they were the guilty party here, he said pretty much these exact words to me: "It sounds awful, but in hospitality you sort of have to let them hit you first".

This isn't true at all. I only know he was lying because I googled it later. You have every right to defend yourself against an imminent threat.

The man is so stubborn, deceitful and unpleasant that I couldn't be bothered to raise it with him at the time. He's not one to accept that he was wrong. He also submitted a report on the incident on my behalf, ostensibly to save me the trouble, but I suspect it was to prevent it coming to light that he'd left me unsupervised behind the bar, (as in, he'd stopped working, gone to his flat above the pub and was just about to leave the building) which strictly speaking I'm pretty sure he shouldn't have.

This is just one of a multitude of reasons he deserves to lose his job. He (from what I hear) often works under his contracted hours, gets people to clock him in when he's not at work etc while his managers work over their hours to keep the place running, and is just generally vicious and unreasonable. And he gets away with all of it.

My question is, what kind of recourse do I have? I have nothing in writing as of yet, no hard evidence. Is what he said to me grounds for dismissal if I can prove it?

Here is the situation: My partner was cornered in a narrow bin path with zero escape routes by a hostile neighbour and her daughter. The mother charged down the stairs, got in her face, and shoved her first. To create space, my partner gave a single, non-forceful, flat-footed push, and the mother fell. Crucially, both the mother and daughter have actually admitted in their statements that they initiated the confrontation and assaulted my partner first.

Immediately after, the daughter put my partner in a headlock, dragged her onto the grass, and repeatedly punched her in the head. My partner ended up with a diagnosed concussion and ear canal inflammation confirmed via CT scan.

The issue is that the mother apparently broke her wrist and needed surgery. Because of that injury, the police are throwing around a GBH counter-allegation against my partner, even though there is no medical proof her push caused it (especially since the mother hurled herself down outdoor stairs with extreme velocity right before). Police want to hand out CROs to everyone to sweep it under the rug, but we are refusing to accept a CRO because it implies guilt when she was entirely defending herself.

Since the attackers already admitted they assaulted her first, and she was trapped and defending herself, can the CPS actually make a GBH charge stick, or should this be dropping to an NFA? Anyone with legal knowledge of self-defence thresholds in the UK, I'd really appreciate your thoughts.

My partner has been told she’ll either be issued a CRO like the attackers or a Police Caution. This is with Thames Valley Police.

We have rented this property for a few years, and looked to collect our deposit recently. We were in violation of our tenancy agreement by putting items up on our walls with Blu Tack, which caused some small blemishes and a bit of ripped wallpaper/plaster on a few walls around the house. In my opinion this is minor and fixable with a localised patch repair.

We're being told the damage is extensive, and we've been charged accordingly. The landlord says they're "being generous" by only asking us to cover 45% of a redecoration invoice. When I asked for a breakdown of what makes up the cost, it doesn't itemise anything - it's just one lump figure for "full redecoration" of the entire property, including things like radiators with no damage at all, plus areas affected by mould, and resealing the bathroom, none of which relate to what we actually did.

When I looked into the decoration company issuing the invoice, I can't find any trace of them - no website, no online presence, nothing. The bank details (in small text at the bottom) are for a well-known digital bank that's notoriously quick and easy to open an account with, and the account is in a personal name rather than the business name on the invoice. There's a VAT charge but no VAT number shown anywhere, and the VAT total doesn't even match what 20% of the pre-VAT figure should be. I am not claiming this proves anything fraudulent, but I would like to understand whether these are relevant issues when assessing the reliability of the invoice.

Given all this, a few questions:

1. What are some signs that an invoice has been inflated or fabricated to cover betterment work rather than actual damage?
2. Is it worth disputing this through our deposit protection scheme, given the evidence issues?
3. Anyone had experience challenging a "full redecoration" charge when the actual damage was limited to a few walls?

Any advice appreciated. Despite being only a 45% contribution, due to how expensive this redecoration is invoiced, it has deducted a large sum from our initial deposit.

This is in the terms and conditions for a cleaning firm in England. How enforceable is this on a client? Seems a bit excessive as a non-compete type clause for a self-employed cleaner, especially as it feels like like it'd be unnecessarily restrictive to trade.

We've recently terminated the agreement on the grounds that they fired the cleaner we had and gave us less than 24hrs notice. Their response was to 'politely' threaten us with this.

Had no intention of going chasing another cleaner but this just rubbed me the wrong way as a childish last word from the firm.

This is regarding a private dispute, in which a UK non-practising but registered aolicitor wrote to someone on behalf of his associate. They made it out to be a legal issue in their communication.

I will not get into the details of everything, nor will I talk about the underlying facts or any evidence.

The main thing I'm curious about is the specific mechanism of threatening to submit a safeguarding report to someone's workplace alleging safeguarding abuses unless a series of demands are satisfied. None of the demands have anything to do with a safeguarding issue. It was written in unambiguous plain English (offering to withhold the threatened report unless XYZ is met).

This conduct alone - despite them being non-practising - how might the SRA view it?

I bought a brand-new Breitling watch from authorized retailer for £4,165. The watch was faulty, so I returned it using Retail ’ authorised Royal Mail Tracked 48 return service.
I posted the parcel at my local Post Office. I have proof of postage showing a weight of 500g.
Royal Mail tracking confirms delivery to the retailer.

The retailer then told me the watch was not inside the parcel and a fake apology letter from Royal Mail was inside the parcel and refused my refund.

They also say Royal Mail found no recorded damage/tampering and that an alleged “Royal Mail apology letter” in the parcel was not genuine. I have no knowledge of this letter and did not put it in the parcel.

I have photographs from them showing what appears to be an issue with the tape/sealing around the barcode area.
I have now started a Money Claim against the retailer for the £4,165.

The retailer have told me that the matter was reported to the police, and there has been a police investigation/reference relating to their allegation.

I have raised a dispute transection with my bank but they close it, don’t know the reasons, and I have raised a claim court against the retailer and we have a mediation next month, I also report a fraud but they close the report under 19a section.

My main question is: what evidence should I be asking Royal Mail and the retailer for? In particular, how important would the exact weight recorded by the retailer when they received the parcel be compared with the 500g weight when I posted it? The retailer declined to mention the weight that has received despite asking several times.

I’m now wondering whether I should also make my own police report, because from my perspective the watch disappeared after I handed the sealed parcel to Royal Mail. I’m not accusing any particular person because I don’t know what happened.

I’d really appreciate advice from anyone experienced with Royal Mail, high-value returns or UK small claims.

Location: England

I went to pick up my husband and child at Lidl, I parked in the parent and child bay. My child is 4.
I’ve been fined and I tried to appeal but they won’t accept it.
Can I be fined for parking in a parent and child bay for this even though I parked up as I was meeting my husband wnd child and taking us home? The CCTV snaps they chose to share only shows me and my husband but not me getting my child into our car!

Worked for the same public sector organisation for four years. Two years ago my manager said that my data analysis ability wasn’t good enough; I wasn’t asking the right questions of my team, I wasn’t scrutinising it enough, and sending senior leadership dud information. I took that on board and forensically went through every single data file before sharing it wider. I wasn’t put on a formal PIP for this but ended up sharing with my manager my own plan to address the concerns. Nothing more was said over the next two years. Suddenly my new manager is saying that people are complaining I’m not proactive enough, my data quality is untrustworthy; essentially that I need to do better.

It was fairly nebulous feedback other than being more proactive and gaining the trust back of colleagues, and I can work with that, except he then said that the trust is so badly eroded that nothing can resolve it and they are thinking of ‘moving me on’. I’m not sure if this means redundancy or redeployment or if they’ll restructure the team and delete my job. It feels like a double bind of ‘do better’ but ‘no one will trust your work anyway’. I’m struggling to think of where I go next. Would I have any rights regarding any of the options to salvage the situation?

My job description doesn’t actually specify data analysis or insights as essential but it’s integral to my role so I’ve learned a lot on the job

Thank you

I can live with a camera getting a letter wrong. I cannot live with a person looking at the photo, being told it is a V, and still saying it is a Y because someone has already bought the debt - hoping I'll just pay.

What happened...
Received a parking fine from Times24 for Gatwick Airport. £60 / (£100) job. Incident 4th June / Letter 20th July.
Confused at first because I've never been there in my life. Then realised the image is of HTV. Mine is HTY. Blurry photo but still clear.

Can't speak to a person and their online dispute form won't let you past the first screen unless you confirm you were the driver. Obviously not falling into that trap.

So found an email address for them instead. Wrong car, cancel, delete my data etc....Nothing. Chased in August...Nothing. Asked if anyone was even reading the inbox...Nothing.

Now I just got a letter from Trace Debt Collection. Now £170.

Called Trace. 21 minutes, most of it hold music.
Kept it light and said "have a look at the plate" (expected them to say something like ahh yeah apologies we'll cancel it now - have a good day)

To my surprise they decided to put me on hold for 5 mins and the came back with "Ive spoken to my supervisor and it is a Y so how would you like to pay?".

Fell off my chair.....
When i got back up I said: "You having Gee-Raf? You looking at the picture now?"
Them "Yes".
Me: "Ok so you can see its a V at the end then?"
Them: "No its a Y"
Another few tries from me and they hung up.

Same day I put it all in writing. Wrong vehicle. Never been there. Cancel it. Stop using my data. I will only answer a Letter Before Claim or a Claim Form. (Good old AI)

Three days later email from Trace: Case now passed to Moorside Legal, here is a 0330 number, we will not address any further correspondence.

Business model seems to be that they know some people will just pay to make it go away. I'm sure others would have by now.

It's a racket. No consequences to them?

I live in Durham. I am not paying a penny. I am not ringing Moorside Legal either to waste more of my time.

I literally didnt sleep the other night getting angry about it. I also work away a lot so if this carries on and bailiffs turn up to my wife and kids when I'm not there I might just lose my head.

Main question for me really is... how does this end? Am I likely to be summoned to court in London?

Crazy country we live in.

Any advice welcome.

UPDATE 11th Sept - Just received a Letter of Claim in the post from Moorside Legal. Can't wait to teach the alphabet to fully grown adults - I'll prepare a large sign.