After all the exciting news of the last two newsletters it seems like there is less for me to report this month. This doesn’t mean that we are resting on our laurels or that we are not pushing forward the business. Far from it. In fact we seem to be as busy as ever. However, various projects that we have on the go at the moment are not quite yet finalised and therefore are not ready to be announced yet.

When it is time to make these new announcements rest assured that you will be the first to hear about them, through Chat with Chebseys and also our Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin pages.

You will notice that the newsletter continues to evolve. We are always looking at what we do and trying to improve and the newsletter is no different. I hope that you enjoy it and as ever if you have any suggestions or requests please let us know so that we can look into them.

This month seems to be all about the budget of a few weeks ago and the upcoming election. Now that the dust has settled on the budget and we can see exactly what is being proposed we are able to bring you the various sections of the budget that affect the various departments in this firm. We aren’t going to make any political comments on the budget (or the election) and therefore we are just reporting the budget as we see it.

Whilst the budget always seems to be depressing we hope that we can cheer you up with Pat’s wonderful recipe for chocolate cake. I can personally recommend the end product as I always look forward to Pat making cakes for the office - even though it means that I have to play more tennis to try and work off the effects of those nasty calories! I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do.

Lastly, but not least congratulations to Ben on completing the London Marathon last weekend, which is a tremendous achievement. I suspect that he burnt off plenty enough calories to justify eating one of Pat’s delicious cakes and he certainly deserves it!

M. Keith Chebsey
Director and Chairman
April 2010

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Following on from last month’s announcement that Alistair Bertrand is now a Director in the firm we can also announce that from 1st May he will also become Head of the Property Department. Is there no end to his rise? Read his interview at the bottom of this newsletter to find out more about Alistair including some information that may even surprise his colleagues.

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In the budget the Chancellor announced a relief on Stamp Duty Land Tax for first time buyers of residential property for a value of up to £250,000. Stamp Duty Land Tax is payable for properties purchased for more than £125,000 and up to £250,000 at 1% of the price. The relief will be in place until 25 March 2012. There are conditions attached to the relief including:

• The intention must be for the buyer to occupy the property as their only or main home.
• The purchaser or purchasers must not have purchased property anywhere in the world and the interest purchased must be a freehold or a least with at least 21 years to run.


• The purchaser cannot be a corporate body, partnership or trustee.

If you would like more information please do not hesitate to contact Alistair Bertrand at aab@chebsey.com

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The Old - John Chatterton-Ross

John Chatterton-Ross works in the crime and regulatory department at our office in Burnham. He became friends with Keith Chebsey in the early 1980s when they were both serving as principal clerks in the Magistrates' courts service in Cornwall. Their paths divergedas Keith moved to High Wycombe to enter private practice and John decided on a more exciting life by joining the police - also at High Wycombe!

Did you ever meet Keith professionally when you were in Thames Valley Police?
I served twenty years as I was 35 when I joined. Amazingly we never met in court although I did see Keith occasionally at the policestation when I was a custody sergeant.

What do you do in your new role?
I am involved in case preparation. Seeing clients at an early stage to take detailed instructions. Also, and this can be very important at times, tracing witnesses and visiting locations, to check out what is being said, and if it really could have happened that way or not. Sometimes we will go into a lot of detail and photograph and map a location too.

Does the court service and police background help much?
Yes, it is clearly relevant. The rules governing witness statements for example are the same for both defence and prosecution. In traffic cases particularly the experience of having attended so many accidents in my police service is really useful in giving a quality service to clients facing prosecution for motoring matters.

Any particular highlights in such a varied career?
Getting my law degree on the London University external programme in 2000. I started to study again in my spare time towards the end of my police service. I am glad I did since it opened up new opportunities when I left the service.

The New - Amy French, Trainee Police Station Representative

My supervisor received a call at 11.00am to attend one client at the police station. We duly attended and shortly after arrival received a further call from our colleague to say that there was another matter at the police station that needed dealing with. A short while after that my supervisor was informed that the police were ready to interview on another matter taking the total up to three.

Therefore our one matter at the police station had rapidly become three clients and it appeared as though we would be there all day.

I am currently training as a police station representative and therefore observed my supervisor advise two of the clients. After a quick run to the shop to grab some very late lunch it was my turn to advise the client. After the initial nerves from the realisation of the fact that the matter would now be solely in my hands, I dealt with the matter without incident.

We finally made our way out of the police station at 6.15pm. We headed to the car park, got into the car and headed to the exit. Unfortunately the car park that we had parked in at 11.00am was now closed...the barrier was down and locked and there was no way out. We would have to call for a lift and collect the car the next morning!

We provide a 24 hour police station representation free of charge. Our 24hr emergency Crime / Police Station Hotline is 07899 953415

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Budget In Cider

One of the items in the budget that you have probably read about is the much published increase in duty on cider. Duty on cider increased by 10% above inflation from the Sunday after the budget. Duty on beer, wine and spirits will also increase as planned. Tobacco duty will rise immediately by 1% above inflation this year, then 2%.

For further information on these or other issues relating to Entertainment and Gaming contact either Keith Chebsey (mkc@chebsey.com) or Helen Woodend (hew@chebsey.com) on 01494 670440.

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VAT Increase

The UK Budget may have not made any changes to the rate of VAT, but Spain is different, with an increase in most of the VAT rates from 1st July 2010. In Spain there are several different rates of IVA (the Spanish equivalent of VAT). The top rate of IVA will increase from 16% to 18%. The middle rate (which applies to new property) will go up from 7% to 8%. The lowest rate of 4% will remain the same. IVA stands for Impuesto de Valor Añadido, which translates as Value Added Tax.

Some of us suspect that over time there will be a harmonisation of taxes rates throughout Europe. Could this be the start of that process? Those of us who believe that this is going to happen think that the process has already begun – after all there is already a minimum VAT rate throughout Europe, which has got to be part of a plan to harmonise taxes.

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Timeshare

We are getting lots of calls regarding Timeshare recently. We often get calls from people who have recently signed up for Timeshare and want us to help them get out of it, which we often can. However, recently we have received a lot of calls from people who have owned timeshare for many years and who now want to get out of it because the cost of maintenance has gone up so much over the years. Unfortunately for many people there is no simple solution to this. Trying to sell Timeshare now is very difficult – people are struggling to give their weeks away and there are a lot of scams associated with reselling timeshare. One option is to simply stop paying the maintenance, but this has the risk that legal proceedings will be brought against you for the balance, which in turn could affect your credit rating.

We are working on a solution for people in this position and have progressed well, but have not finalised this yet. We don’t want to launch the solution until we are satisfied that it is bullet proof. In the meantime we are keeping a list of people who are interested in the solution for when we managed to finalise it. If you are interested in this please email Peter Esders at pje@chebsey.com

For further information relating to Spain contact Diego Rubio (drm@chebsey.com) or Peter Esders (pje@chebsey.com) on 01494 670 440

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Keep On Running

Congratulations to our very own “Running Man” Ben Lindsay for finishing the London Marathon over the weekend. This is a tremendous achievement and a true inspiration to the rest of us who just about managed to raise the energy to watch the race on the television with a mug of tea and some biscuits.

Ben (runner number 42266) finished the marathon in a thoroughly credible 4 hours 18 minutes, which is fantastic considering that he was a non runner before he decided to do the marathon! However, his achievement becomes even more remarkable when you start to look at his race statistics. His split times show that he ran each 5k in almost exactly the same times, showing an absolute consistent pace throughout the whole race. He ran the second half of the race in almost exactly the same time as he did the first. 36,000 people entered the marathon in total and Ben came in number 14,474, just outside the top 40% of all runners in his very first race! He came in number 6,348 in his category (18 – 39 years old). Remarkable. Well done Ben.

We will let you know how much Ben managed to raise for Mencap when the final figure comes in. In the meantime there is still time to sponsor Ben. Just log onto to www.justgiving.com/benlindsay and donate to this worthy cause. Don’t forget Gift Aid as this can make a great difference to the amount raised. Ben can be contacted on bwl@chebsey.com

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Easy Chocolate Cake Recipe

by Pat Hayman (PA and chief cake maker at the Burnham Office)

Ingredients
300 gms dark chocolate – not high cocoa content 200 gms self raising flour 300 gms light muscovado sugar 6 tbsp cocoa 150 ml sunflower oil 284ml pot soured cream (or put lemon juice into double cream) 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix flour, sugar, cocoa, oil, 100ml cream, eggs vanilla and 100ml water and whisk with electric beaters until smooth. Stir in 100 gms chocolate (broken into small pieces). Either put in cakes cases about 12 muffin size and bake for 20 minutes on gas 4 (gas 160C) or an 8 inch cake tin and bake for about 1 hour gas 4 until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Icing
Put remaining chocolate, cream and 3 tbsp light muscovado sugar in a small saucepan and heat gently until melted. Cool before icing cakes. You may need to add some more milk to soften. I also put in brandy or Tia Maria to make softer.

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Lawyer Profile - Alistair Bertrand

Only recently been appointed as a Director and also as head of the Property Department, Alistair is the third Director to be interviewed for Chat with Chebseys.

Alistair was born and lived in France until he was 18. He moved to the UK to study Law with European Legal Studies at Reading University, spending a year at the Universitat de Barcelona as part of the course.

Alistair qualified as a solicitor in September 2003. He trained and worked post qualification at a large firm in Reading before working in house for two years with one of the top 10 national housebuilders.

He started working as a locum for Chebsey & Co in December 2008 and took a full time position with the Firm in October 2009. Alistair specialises in Commercial and Residential property as well as Land Development. Alistair was the chairman of the Reading Chamber of Commerce Property Group for over two years.

In his spare time he enjoys reading, going to the cinema and theatre and travelling. His favourite book is Bear v Shark by Chris Bachelder. Alistair volunteers with the Prince’s Trust and is a member of the Prince’s Trust Thames Valley Local Area Volunteer Co-Ordination Forum.

Why did you become a lawyer?

I heard someone give a talk on being a lawyer and I was inspired by him.

What is your favourite lawyer joke?

Lawyer – “What happened then?”
Defendant – “He told me that he would have to kill me because I could identify him."
Lawyer. - “Did he kill you?”

What gets you up in the morning?

The alarm clock and the cat demanding food.

What is your passion?

Volunteering with the Prince's Trust. It is great to see young people succeed in life with a little help and encouragement.

Which famous person, dead or alive, would you most like to spend a day with?

Eric Rhomer

Tell us an interesting fact about yourself.

I was a novice Buddhist monk in Thailand.

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