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Service, please!

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Successful service of a notice is a deceptively difficult task: Taylor Briggs & Michael Ranson serve up a recent reminder from the courts
  • The Court of Appeal decision in Khan v D’Aubigny highlights the complexities of serving notices, and contains a number of useful points of interest.
  • These include the scope of s 7, Interpretation Act 1978, the meaning of the word ‘notice’, and the role of evidence in proving that a document has not, in fact, ever been received.
  • The judgment underscores the importance of clearly defining a ‘notice’ for the purposes of an agreement, and taking care when agreeing deemed service provisions.

The seemingly simple act of ‘serving a notice’ is a task which clients often believe is easy, but which most practitioners know can be fraught with difficulty. The recent Court of Appeal decision in Khan and another v D’Aubigny [2025] EWCA Civ 11 has once again forced practitioners to take a closer look at how notices are served, including certain important statutory provisions,

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NEWS
In this week's issue, Stephen Gold, NLJ columnist and former district judge, surveys another eclectic fortnight in procedure. With humour and humanity, he reminds readers that beneath the procedural dust, the law still changes lives
Generative AI isn’t the villain of the courtroom—it’s the misunderstanding of it that’s dangerous, argues Dr Alan Ma of Birmingham City University and the Birmingham Law Society in this week's NLJ
James Naylor of Naylor Solicitors dissects the government’s plan to outlaw upward-only rent review (UORR) clauses in new commercial leases under Schedule 31 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, in this week's NLJ. The reform, he explains, marks a seismic shift in landlord-tenant power dynamics: rents will no longer rise inexorably, and tenants gain statutory caps and procedural rights
Writing in NLJ this week, James Harrison and Jenna Coad of Penningtons Manches Cooper chart the Privy Council’s demolition of the long-standing ‘shareholder rule’ in Jardine Strategic v Oasis Investments
Professor Dominic Regan of City Law School and the Frenkel Topping Group—AKA The insider—crowns Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys LLP as his case of 2025 in his latest column for NLJ. The High Court’s decision—that non-authorised employees cannot conduct litigation, even under supervision—has sent shockwaves through the profession. Regan calls it the year’s defining moment for civil practitioners and reproduces a ‘cut-out-and-keep’ summary of key rulings from Mr Justice Sheldon
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