Patio in the air
Q. I live in a semi-detached house, and my neighbour has applied to build a single-storey extension to her dining room and kitchen. I don’t mind this, but I object to her putting a patio on top because it means our garden will be overlooked. My deeds (and hers presumably) prohibit “anything which may be a nuisance or annoyance to the owners of neighbouring property.” Can I use this to prevent the patio being built?
A. No. The word “nuisance” is a well-defined legal term: it can encompass anything from damage to your property to smells or noise. But it doesn’t include actions on your neighbour’s part that you just find irritating! You aren’t entitled by law to privacy in your garden, however intrusive your neighbour’s plans are. If planning permission is required for the extension you should make your views known by writing to your local authority’s planning department. I suggest you also discuss the problem with your neighbour: you may be able to persuade her to redesign her patio to take on board your objections.

Divide and save
Q. After reading “Worry Over Care Fees” (Oct 10th) I am now wondering if it would be beneficial to have our wills altered. At present our home is held in joint names and we have made wills leaving everything to each other and, after both deaths, in equal parts to our children.
A. If you are concerned about care home fees it will be necessary for you to sever any joint tenancy so that you own your house as tenants in common (rather than as joint tenants). As far as your wills are concerned, the best arrangement will be for each of you to include a discretionary trust in your wills, to take effect on the first death. The wills should also provide for the trust to be satisfied with an equitable charge over the share in the house of the first to die. The fact that monies will be owed to the trust under the equitable charge will enable half the value of the house to be kept out of assessment should the survivor have to go into a care home. This arrangement will ensure that there will be no capital gains tax disadvantages, and will also ensure that on the first death the surviving spouse will have a right to carry on living in the house, since the entire house will be in his/her name, albeit subject to the debt due to the discretionary trust.

Too good to be true?
Q. A friend who emigrated to Canada died last year and left us $50,000 dollars in his will – the equivalent of about £25,000. His solicitor tells us it will probably be 12 months before we receive the money: will we have to pay capital gains tax on our windfall, or tax on unearned income?
A. As long as the terms of the will gave the money to you free of Canadian inheritance tax or its equivalent – and the solicitor should have told you if it didn’t – you shouldn’t have any tax to pay on receipt of your legacy. The interest it earns when you finally put the money in your bank account will obviously be taxable: but that’s quite a nice problem to have!

Gaining ground
Q. Our house opens on to the pavement at the front. We have lived here for nearly 40 years and the council have always repaired the paving. But when a council employee was marking the slabs to be repaired recently he told us that half the pavement was our responsibility and we would have to pay for the repairs. Is this true, and if so, would we be liable if someone tripped and broke their leg on it?
A. Your title deeds should tell you whether or not you are the proud owners of a bit of pavement. If not you could double check with the local authority’s highways department: the council employee must have got his information from somewhere! If the pavement does turn out to belong to you, you could be held responsible if the slabs are uneven and someone hurt themselves as a result. You can probably rip them up (as opposed to repairing them) and turn the area into a small garden if you so choose, although there’s a possibility that anyone using the pavement as an access will have acquired rights over it.

Expecting visitors
Q. We would like to know how we would stand if someone was bitten by our dogs after climbing into a fenced area where there’s no gate?
A. It would depend on the height of the fence and on whether you could reasonably have anticipated that people might want to climb over it: if you have an apple tree close to the fence, for instance, it could be argued that you should have foreseen that children might be tempted on to your property. If people have regularly crossed the area to reach the pub and you have fenced it off to prevent them doing so you might expect them to attempt to continue to use the short cut, and so could be held responsible if they were bitten. If in doubt put up warning signs and keep the dogs on a chain.