Walker Love were delighted to support the local Argyll and Oban Faculty CPD event: Civil Enforcement In Scotland, which took place on Tuesday 23rd April 2013.
Delivering a comprehensive “civil enforcement” seminar covering all aspects of Sheriff Officer enforcement in Scotland, the event offered an ideal opportunity for local practitioners to engage and discuss the operational, technical and practical challenges of civil enforcement in Scotland with Walker Love Sheriff Officers.
Scottish Paralegal Association – Celebrating 20 years of promoting the profession.
Due to popular demand the Scottish Paralegal Association annual conference this year was held for the first time on a week day at the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow on 18th April 2013.
Celebrating 20 years of promoting the paralegal profession they were delighted to have 100 delegates attend. Education and learning from best practice was the key objective of the day, with seminars offering talks on Risk Management, Conveyancing, Conflict of Interest and skills learning for achieving a good work-life balance.
Walker Love were delighted to be primary exhibitors at the event and very proud to support another highly successful Scottish Paralegal Association conference.
For more information on the Scottish Paralegal Association click here.
Money advisers from across Scotland gathered at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Glasgow on the 3rd and 4th June to discuss the key issues arising from welfare, bankruptcy and financial services regulatory reform at the annual Money Advice Scotland conference, sponsored by Walker Love.
With key note addresses from Margaret Curran, MP and Robert Skinner from the Lending Standards Board and a series of workshop discussions on bankruptcy, from a lenders, collectors and consumers perspective, welfare reform and regulation, the conference provides an opportunity for those in credit and debt advisory industry to come together to tackle the reform challenges and share best practice.
Walker Love is delighted to continue to support the 2013 MAS Annual Conference. As one of the largest firms of Messengers-at-Arms and Sheriff Officers, providing Collection and Enforcement services to a number of Local Authorities and Court users across the whole of Scotland.
In support of the Scottish Government’s objective to have a common financial tool and standard financial health check regulations across the money and consumer advice sector, Walker Love is currently working on a number of projects in this area. MAS has also been working with Walker Love to provide training and guidance sessions to our telephone and field force agents on dealing with financial hardship, vulnerable individuals and money advice services.
For more information on Money Advice Scotland >click here
Walker Love launches the Allpay mobile payment app to its customers. Find out how you can get it.
The Allpay mobile payment app. The app which helps you to manage your debts > Download the app now
More than 14,000 people have downloaded allpay’s Payment App in the last 12 months and are using it to regularly pay bills such as rent and council tax, new figures show.
Walker Love’s customers can download it for free – allowing you to pay their bills anytime, anywhere and you to receive the payment data the next working day. >Visit the Allpay website
More than 300 organisations, the majority of which are housing associations and local authorities, are now regularly receiving payments in this way. However, its uses don’t stop there. allpay Cashless customers are using it to top up their accounts, while others are using it to pay fines and manage debts.
The allpay App is a mobile application (App) available to download from the Apple App store or Google Play >more information
Allpay has also recently launched a new version of the Payment App which includes a barcode reader and the ability for residents to make one-time payments where they don’t need to store an allpay Payment Reference Number (PRN) or bank card.
For more information on the Allpay App and to download >click here
The Bankruptcy & Diligence Etc (Scotland) Act 2007 contains 17 Parts and Six Schedules. One of the most succinct, but relevant sections of the B.A.D. Act can be found at Part 17 Section 227 (3) which states that sections of the Act “come into force on such day as the Scottish Ministers may, by order, appoint.”
To download click here >Simple Guide to BAD Act – Walker Love
In view of the complexity and the far-reaching effect that each section of the Act has on the execution of diligence, it was essential that this paragraph was inserted.
The overarching principal of the B.A.D. Act is “universal attachability.” It envisaged:
However, both Land and Residual Attachment have been delayed somewhat and the whole concept of SCEC appears to have been abandoned, as has the Abolition of Messengers-at-Arms and Sheriff Officers.
To download click here >Simple Guide to BAD Act – Walker Love
Following the recommendations published in Lord Gill’s report on Scottish Civil Courts where he called for courts to be more responsive to the public’s needs and to deal with cases more swiftly and efficiently, radical plans have been announced to overhaul Scotland’s ‘antiquated’ civil courts.
The court reform consultation which is due to be published soon is expected to contain:
Lord Gill’s two year study of the Scotland’s civil courts system recommended a major transfer of jurisdiction from the Court of Session to the Sheriff Court to allow more cases to be dealt with at a local level, instead of at the Court of Session. This will enable the CoS to focus on the most serious and complex cases – and to speed up the whole process in both Courts.
The Accountant in Bankruptcy has accounced changes to the The Debtor Scotland Act 1987, Schedule 2, which sets out the amount that can be deducted from a debtor’s wages in an earnings arrestment.
An earnings arrestment is when a debtor’s employer receives an instruction to deduct an amount from an employee’s wages and pays it direct to their creditors.
Following a scheduled Ministerial review, the the deduction tables will be amended with effect from 6 April 2013 by The Diligence against Earnings (Variation) (Scotland) Regulations 2012.
This change also alters the Protected Minimum Balance in bank arrestments. The PMB sets out a minimum amount which is protected from arrestment and provides important protection for those who may have their bank account arrested. The PMB will increase from £415 to £460.06.
Further information will be posted on this Accountant in Bankruptcy’s website about the changes to diligence against earnings before they come into force on 6 April 2013.
The Scottish legal profession’s largest training congress and exhibition to be held both in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Walker Love is supporting the Commercial Litigation and Criminal Law Conferences at the Edinburgh event on 1st and 2nd May at the Raddison Blu Hotel.
Dorothy Lowe, Partner will be chairing the Criminal Law Conference and David Walker will be addressing the commercial litigators (details below) and we will be exhibiting in the main conference.
European Citation and Enforcement
David Walker will provide an informative overview on the practical implementation of current EU rules on service and enforcement in other European Jurisdictions.
Today’s global economy and the relaxation of travel and employment legislation throughout Europe, has resulted in a significant rise in the number of instructions managed by Sheriff Officers in respect of transmitting services abroad and also executing citation and diligence received from other EU jurisdictions.
For its part the EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT and THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, have developed specific legislation to improve the speed of transmission of citation such as EU Reg.1393/2007 which has dramatically improved the efficiency of cross border services.
Furthermore, recent legislation has been developed to help creditors enforce their judgements by doing away with the need to sue other jurisdictions, which has made cross border enforcement a lot quicker and relatively inexpensive.
In addition to explaining the legal process, the speaker will give an insight into the peculiar nature of many of the other European Judicial Officers responsible for managing your client’s instructions abroad, which can determine if the service will be completed in days instead of months!
Other speakers at the Commercial Litigation conference on 2nd May include:
The speakers at the Criminal Law Conference on 1st May include:
For more information on the services we provide to professional services firms, including citation & diligence, professional investigations and to find out how we can help with your pre-litigation enquiries, visit us at stand 4 in Glasgow on October 30th or 31st.
Figures released by the Accountant in Bankruptcy, Scotland’s Insolvency Service, at the end of October for Q2 2012-13 have a shown a decrease in personal insolvencies of 24.5% compared to the same period last year and this is coupled with a decrease 27.5% from the previous quarter.
According to the AiB, the decrease is due to the reduced number of bankruptcies by debtor application in the second quarter. There were a particularly high number of debtor application awards in the previous quarter in advance of the increase in fees charged for this form of bankruptcy. However, we have still witnessed a decrease of debtor applications by more than a third when compared to the same period last year.
Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism, Fegus Ewing said that the decrease was expected due to the necessary fee increase for bankruptcy applications and that the Scottish Government and its agencies were committed to breaking the cycle of debt and highlighted the work the AiB is doing on bankruptcy reform.
There are a range of options available to you if you are struggling with your debts. For more information click here.