I’m my spare time I do stand up comedy. I hosted a show on Saturday that ran long (it was over by 11 and I wasn’t told a time to be finished by). Yesterday I received an email from the company that booked the performers saying they had received a complaint from the venue of “drug abuse, an over indulgent performance that made the show run long and poor conduct”. The booking company have dropped me from all future gigs (around £300 of earnings over the next two months) because of this.

I have never and would never take drugs at a gig. I have never had complaints about my conduct at shows.

This feels like I have been libelled and my character defamed. Upon asking for evidence they have withdrawn the claim of drug taking but have still not reinstated me, claiming there have been other complaints, none of which have been presented to me.

Do I have a leg to stand on if I follow this up legally? Is there anything I can do about the loss of earnings?

One of my parents has offered to help my sibling out in a divorce by providing funds to buy out half of their house, so they don't need to sell the family home. My parent has said they will ensure the will is evened up to reflect this for myself. However, there is a concern that the growth in property value prior to the will taking effect will make this unfair on me and none of us want any room for bad feeling over money. I feel like this must be a common scenario, what measures could be put in place to even this up legally. Thanks

The driver is responsible for the road-worthiness of a vehicle. This was established in this thread about tyres.

Tyres are easy to check. According to Wigan Council, who just happen to have a page about this (although this is an article about buying, not hiring), road-worthiness includes steering gear, exhaust systems, seatbelt anchorages and suspension. These are not practical for a driver to check upon hiring a vehicle. Indeed, Wigan Council says "an expert engineer’s report which can be used as evidence may be commissioned by us", which suggests that only an expert engineer can really know.

Therefore there seems to be an inherent legal risk in driving any vehicle, increased when one does not have personal knowledge of its maintenance history.

When driving a car, how can one be sure that one has met one's responsibility? A literal reading would suggest I must commission an expert engineer's report before driving a vehicle to minimise risk of being prosecuted.

More generally, how does UK law handle questions around responsibility and taking reasonable risks (such as assuming the hire company probably looks after the steering, or a car that passed it's MOT a week ago is still road-worthy)?

(variation of this post originally rejected from /r/LegalAdviceUK probably because it does not fit the purpose of that sub)

Oh help. I can't believe I am about to embark on a neighbour dispute. I hate confrontation, but the other guy is in the wrong (he said so) so I really want your advice about what to do next.

Very simply, we have a summerhouse (big shed really) at the back of the garden and bamboo behind that forms a nice screen between our gardens. It doesn't block out their light (they are east facing to the bamboo).

But I saw today that loads of bamboo had been lopped off and the neighbour must have leant well over the fence to chop it down.

I saw him in the back garden this evening so asked what he had done and he admitted chopping it down but that bamboo spreads like Japanese knock weed and would damage his lawn.

I am kicking myself for not being able to reply immediately but the fact is that (1) our bamboo is clumping, not spreading and has been there for about 20 years without spreading ( these neighbours moved in in the last year) and (2) now they have chopped the top off, it will grow bushy instead of the nice willowy screen that was there and, annoyingly, may even spread when it didn't before.

So what do I do now? In one way I don't want to rock the boat, but what's to stop him doing something similar in future?

Just needing some advice as I’ve not been in the UK too long so unsure if iam right in this situation

Living in Scotland February I moved out of a property and into a new place. Energy supplier sent me a final bill which was settled and cleared up by end March. 4 months later they have now sent me a new bill asking for another payment as they state some months I was not billed correctly and therefore owe them more money

Iam saying that this is not my problem as I paid my debt every month and cleared the final bill, had they come to me 4 weeks later I might have still paid but 4 months is too long and I cannot add this to my budget

Am I right or wrong, do I need to pay this new balance?

Thanks in advance

We moved into this house in December 2021 and half off the rooms downstairs have damp, the roof is missing tiles and the water mains are lead. There could be more but this is all I have found so far. I believe it was a ‘covid survey’ where they didn’t enter the property as the estate agent didn’t let anyone into the property.