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Following on from the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, the Scottish Government has also announced a temporary holiday on LBTT (the equivalent of Stamp Duty in England) in order to get the housing market in Scotland moving again. In Scotland, homebuyers have been required to pay Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) on residential properties over £145,000, with the exception of first-time buyers in Scotland who are not required to pay LBTT on a property purchase up to £175,000. However now the threshold has been increased to £250,000 – this is a temporary cut running until 31 March 2021.

Macnabs has drafted hundreds of Wills for clients and raised over £10,000 for charity this year after taking part in a will-writing campaign where lawyers generously give up their time for free to write Wills for local people, in exchange for a donation to the charity.

There are numerous issues which can arise when a vulnerable beneficiary (a person who is mentally or physically disabled; or someone under 18 who has lost a parent through death) inherits a sum of money from an estate if no safeguards have been put in place. Often these safeguards take the form of trust provisions incorporated into your Will which allow your executors, who would act as the trustees, to hold funds on behalf of the vulnerable beneficiary until either a certain age or event is reached, or until your trustees think it is appropriate for funds to be made over to the beneficiary.

SSE is one of Perth's largest employers, with approximately 2,000 members of staff. The recent merger with Ovo Energy has prompted concerns about the effects of the merger on unemployment in Perth, with the announcement of potential job losses and redundancies. Around 80% of the job losses will come from the SSE business, with the company expecting 1,000 jobs to be lost in Scotland. SSE has not yet confirmed the precise number of job losses affecting Perth.