I am doing a bit of inheritance tax planning and need a Gift of memorandum template. Are there any free ones going on the internet? I figure they must be very common! Thanks, Jon

I've just been reading through an old thread on here regarding Carmel Butler's Memorandum to the House of Commons Treasury regarding mortgage securitization, which I have referred to in my skeleton argument for my defence in a possession hearing I have tomorrow. Does anyone such as supersleuth or enoughisenough or Smarterchick have any updates on how they got on, as the other thread seems to have dried up? If anyone can tag/link them in here as I don't have enough posts yet, that would be very good of you.

We have lived in the same privately rented flat since 2012. We were in an 18 month tenancy, then signed a further 12 month tenancy. After that we decided we would rather go on to a periodic/rolling tenancy as we were fed up of the fees each time we renewed. The letting agent tried to discourage us from doing this but we stood firm. We have been on a periodic tenancy for 12 months now. If we had signed another tenancy agreement 12 months ago, it would be time to renew around about now. Two weeks ago we received an email telling us our tenancy was up for renewal and asking we wanted to sign another one. I replied to say we are happy to remain on our current rolling contract. A few days later we received another email attaching a memorand of renewal and requesting £70. The only difference going forwards will be the rent increase, which we also had last year with no need to sign anything. We have never been asked to sign a memorandum of renewal by previous letting agents - it has just gone on to a rolling contract. When the rent has gone up, that has been that - we have just paid it with no need to sign anything. Can someone tell me if the memorandum of renewal is above board? Do we have to pay it? What is the benefit of us signing this document versus being on a rolling contract? For background we have recently annoyed our letting agent as we had been waiting for a broken window to be repaired for four weeks (totally broken so totally insecure). After it had still not been repaired and the letting agency stopped answering emails about it (but did chase us to renew our tenancy), I contacted the landlord directly to ask if they would mind chasing it with the agent. It was finally repaired last week. Any advice will be really appreciated. Thanks!

Does anyone know some legalize with regards to a memorandum of renewal for an AST. My anniversary is up and the new LL wants to increase by 6% & the period is for a further 6 months. Not a problem. Does this mean I have a " new" 6 month contract or is this just a rolling periodic contract where I can still be given 1 month's notice, instead of 2. Other tenants in my block have been told that if they don't accept the increase & sign ; then a month's notice will be issued. For the record only 1 week's notice of the increase/memo was given. Secondly the new LL bought the property 6 months ago but kept us in situ with the old LL contract. Can they now extend a contract with us that clearly has the old LL details. We presume that when they bought the block they didn't want to issue a new contract for whatever reason but none of us have a signed agreement with the new LL. Also the memo states this is a 6 month extension based on the contract signed last year in August 2013 between themselves ( herein called the LL) & ourselves( the tenant). How can they claim to be the LL for a contract signed before they even bought the property? Finally some of us have looked at our contracts & deposits & have discovered the old LL secured our deposits 40 days after we moved in; this has now been updated to show the new LL details but only since Feb 2014 when the property was sold/bought. Are they now liable even though original deposits were dealt with by someone else.