Hi the dog is 4. It doesnt go off the lead. Yes RSPCA are a nightmare i think it would have been easier to adopt a baby.

Im not bothered about the money. They save a lot of animals they are welcome to it. They do a very hard job. They can keep it. If i ever came into money i would give them some. But yes i will check re ownership.

Hi no that was part of the cost. So theyve had the money.

Thank you, I signed the papers - but it said before you take the dog. So, have they not breached their own agreement?

I adopted a beagle cross a few months ago one of the conditions stipulated by the rescue centre was that the dog had to be neutered before I took the dog home. However, they didn't have time to do it due to the influx over Christmas. When they last rang me the dog was unwell but I have now looked into the benefits for and against neutering and the impact it had on my last dog and I have decided I would not like to have the operation performed on my dog. I have no intention of breeding the dog, I am a staunch believer that rescue is best (adopt dont shop!) - and I am prepared to sign a legal letter to say I won't breed the dog. do I have any rights to say no - given they gave me the dog before they had neutered it. Surely the dog is now legally mine?

Hi there not sure anyone will pick up this thread if it is old. But here goes. I live in a 1920s property which has cast iron gutters which are quite big and I have a dressed lead roof over a shared porch as the house is a semi. A few months back the new neighbours asked us was our porch leaking - it wasn't and he never said much else. It turns out he has had some dodgy workmen stick asphalt pieces over his side of the roof - this has made things worse and at one point flooded his downstairs loo. Leaves and water are collecting under the asphalt as it has 'lipped up' where his is higher than mine. he has also had the same workmen cut off his gutters and replace with small plastic ones which are about the quarter of the size of the original. Where they join in the middle you can see daylight and there is water dripping through both on the front and back of the property (my fence is being soaked at back) water is finding its way into my hallway and has blown the plaster and the skirting. We have been back to them since May and June respectively - but they keep sending their workmen around to us for us to explain! They are quite rough and ready and try to shout you down while he stands back. I went around on Friday after a downpour of rain as the water is making its way up the wall and the neighbour told me I was impatient and disrespectful and that he had agreed to pay for the damage and was waiting for the leak to be fixed. He swore at me and told me to eff off his property and that I was a f****** pig! I have reported to the police - and I am trying to go through my household legal insurance however they have left me waiting over a week and tried to refer me back to my insurer - saying I should make a claim not a legal one as this is a last resort. But I need someone to make him rectify what he has done and to not trespass onto my property/not do works that impact jointly on the property without consultation before I make a claim I am being passed from pillar to post by the insurance and feel I have nowhere to turn and can't even speak to him anymore as he is very hostile.

Dear Pinkdressagerider, I would be inclined to evidence as much as possible where you have tried to get information from the ET and the respondents solicitor and I got to the stage where I was copying in the ET on everything - to the point where they asked me to stop. As I have said befor I think this is all part of the game to shake you off and wear you out! I wouldnt sit on my laurels and I would keep working on what you need to send and wouldnt bank on the ET saying oh well the respondent was late so thats why you are - they never with me they let the respondent be 25days late with their bundle to me - just before I was about to go on holiday which both the ET and the solicitor knew! Then the ET took 2 weeks to tell me I couldnt have an extension of time and the dates had to be kept to for submission as did the tribunal dates (as I eventually asked for a postponement)# the best advice i could give you is keep working as if you havent got an extension and call their bluff as I expected to get one and never - and so lost a load of time - but I stayed up quite a few nigths and got back on track you have to keep the pressure on! They will just want to fob you off all the time the ET are overworked and just want it resolved (in my belief) and I am now of the opinion that they are more on the side of the employer as employers employ people - and in an age where employment is low they dont really want to deter employers (that is my belief) I have been told on the forum that constructive dismissal is harder to prove - and you woul dhave more gravitas with the Sex discrimination part - as they can fob you off easier with the constructive dismissal stuff and say they had policies in place B

Just to clarify I was not given anything in legal fees they refused to support my case after a lengthy period of reviewing the case despite them knowing it was coming up in the next 2 months! Basically they just dragged their feet denied receiving letter from my solicitor saying what chance he thought I had and asked me to send stuff over and over again Then they said no!

Hi I would have done but they never even agreed to support my case with their own solicitor unfortunately! Never mind my own! So I had no legal support. I do intend to report them to the ombudsman as very unhappy with my treatment and the lack of concern and getting back to me etc and the amount of stress they caused me! they really were a poor set up and even denied receiving stuff I had sent by recorded delivery they have said I can complain to one of their directors if I do not agree that they do not support my case B

Hi an SD74 is the Sex Discrimination questionnaire form which I understand is in relation to 1974 act - my case fell into this time period because I was dismissed in 2010 before the new act was passed in October 2010 so this new act was not relevant to me. I didnt know that you only get a certain time to issue this and so missed the deadline - I asked the Employment Tribunal could I issue it and they said as it was late in day I could ask them (the respondent) to complete it voluntarily - which was bad for me as would have been much better for me if I had got the court to ask them to fill in and they had said no! As it shows they have something to hide Yes my employer had a top notch solicitor one of the legal 500 and a barrister who had been Oxbridge educated - but at the end of the day your only consolation is they are paying for it too at a min of £250 an hour plus VAT hopefully and thats just for a normal solicitor! I was of the understanding that the schedule of loss was a guide to what you had lost - and the court would decide the amount ie which band it fell into (someone please correct me if this is wrong) but I am aware that the other side will use this as a guide for themselves to how much you would be awarded etc and whether it is worth fighting it, settling it or whether you have no chance etc - Hope this is some help

Hi Skaatii, Have you been to see anyone such as the CAB, or a local law centre/clinic or have you your own solicitor via your household legal insurance? Or applied for legal aid? There were lots of things out there which I didnt do and I muddled along until someone on the forum rescued me! I didnt realise all these things were out there and there was a lot of free advice. I foolishly just paid a solicitor out my own money for a while! My ET1 was accepted (which I had filled in myself) and then the judge basically said he didnt really know what I was trying to say when he met me in the case managment meeting - it was then and after having another solicitor look over it as a favour that I realised I had used far too many terms that were only relevant to my ex employer and it was all a bit of a mess. I dont know what your case is - is it sex discrimination as well? I also didnt realise as I was self represented (and the solicitor I had had hadnt told me) that I only had a certain amount of time to submit an SD74 form to my previous employer and you only get a short amount of time to do this - but is massively important and powerful tool in getting them to answer stuff and showing what they wont answer) The other side's solicitor actually quoted a case that was irrelevant back to me! Only when I googled the case he referenced and read it a few times I realised it wasnt the same as my case. Bunty

Re googling other cases I was advised at my Case Management Meeting by the judge to google Vento V West Yorkshire Police when I was calculating my schedule of loss amount - as this is what the bands of financial loss for myself would have been based on. I had great difficulty illustrating in my ET1 form the sex discrimination element of my case. Someone on the forum advised me to look up a 'continued act of discrimination' as my treatment and what I had reported would have been dismissed as being 'out of time' as I had not reported it within the allocated time had it been a one off event but by showing it had gone on and on over a period of time (they had advised me to google the chagger case). I also googled 'a continued act of sex discrimination' on their advice and a few variations of this. There is also a BP case re this. In my case management meeting I also said to the judge that I had been discriminated against as I was a carer and I had not been allowed the same flexible working hours as others. I was advised that this was a 'novel idea' and the judge had never heard of this but would be interested to. But this was something I had seen on the CAB website - you can be discriminated if you are treated differently if you are a carer for a child or a sick, disabled or elderly person I think it was the Coleman case. I got a bit obsessed and was googling variations of stuff too to see if I could find anything but you can spend all day doing that. Im by no means legally trained in any way and when the other side were quoting stuff I was getting in a panic.

Hi HoneyBee - yes I suppose so but like with an insurance policy you dont look at it until something goes wrong just like with your contract of employment or all the other things that have gone before it you dont want to kick up a fuss or look like you are a trouble maker yet they are all tactics for giving people feedback and getting stuff on record passing remarks, sit down chats, things that appear on your review that you think oh I wont make a fuss its nothing So many people do not know about their employment rights etc - I didnt know enough and only through all this am I now forewarned. Madhari is a great source of knowledge I agree - he has helped me immensely

I forgot to say that I would not personally ask to settle I would be as strong in your responses etc as you can as I think if they think you are running scared and want to settle then they either wont offer you anything and will come down harder on you or they will make you a very small offer as they know you are desperate and will do this at the 11th hr! They will prob also look at your financial circumstances to see how much you need the money - any money ie if they knew you were in debt etc you may be desperate so they know how to pull your strings - there are some pretty nasty solicitors out there (and good ones) All tactics im afraid!

Hi there Gosh you are as green as I WAS! I stupidly thought that they would admit to some things and think oh fair cop guvnor - yes we did do this - I even went through the circus of the company appeals procedure, and also sent a without prejudice letter saying that I was willing to talk. I even thought that the appeal process would be a fair one but it wasnt. I was fortunate in that someone I worked with actually offered to come into the appeal with me and they even tried to get that person to say stuff on email to say I had said things in the meeting which I hadnt but in a very clever way ie can you just confirm that Bunty said this. they even tried the tactic that the room was only booked for a certain amount of time to cut it short all things to put me off. Sadly it doesnt work as fairly as it should im afraid. The will never ever admit to anything (and I imagine they are forbiddent to). Even if you get them to a compromise agreement out of court or a COT3 form via ACAS where you reach a mutual decision they will NEVER admit to what they have done it will be their company policy not to expose the company! it will actually say they take no liability or do not admit to any of the claims in case number ......Looking back people asked me was I stupid thinking that the appeal would find in my favour as if a partner or director who was supposed to be working for the company found in my favour then his neck woudl be on the line (it now makes sense but it didnt then as I was naive). He may well have agreed with me behind closed doors - he may even have said this person has a case to the main board of the company - but it is within their interest to deny everything if they admitted stuff on the ET3 the judge would just say you have admitted it why are you wasting tax payers money by having a hearing? Dont be disheartened by this its normal and all part of the plan to shake you off! you have got to think that we are in times of recession and the number of claims they will receive will be on the increase. Employers worry too that word gets around that they have paid people off or settled so they want the message to get out there tht its very difficult! They and their solicitors employ tactics to make you feel like you havent got a case thats why they have them! They will do all sorts of things from sending information late - when you have to have stuff reviewed and commented on such as your bundle. They will be difficult and say they havent got documents. They will dispute the relevance of documents you wish to include saying not required in the bundles and ask you why they are required so as to draw out what you are going to say. This is all to stress you out! And know your plan! No I didnt have any witnesses everyone was too scared to be one - people would not even come into consultation meetings with me when being made redundant! Everyone wanted to keep their job! The first thing your solicitor should do is tell you if you have a case! Have they done that as mine didnt he just took my cash! I dont know how much Tiny Tot got - but he or she is on the forum somewhere in the employment bit so you could mail them as you can send emails that no one else can see and it goes to their private email but you dont see their address and they dont see yours Hope this is of some help - remember its not easy you have to be strong and not take it personally (its hard I know) B:madgrin: