I am single and have no children.

I have one brother and two nieces who are daughters of a deceased sister. Do I need to make a will?

The estate will be divided as follows if you make no will: half to your brother, and a quarter to each of the nieces. However, one of them will need to seek appointment as executor by a court writ, then take out a bond of caution ( insurance policy) at a substantial premium and then get Confirmation ( Probate). by making a will you can score off the first two of those stages and make it much easier for your relatives to wind up your estate. Indeed you can change the shares everyone gets only if you make a will.

I am in rented accommodation. My neighbours have bought their house. We live in a close and they have started to pick on me and my family. I have been to the housing and to the police to no avail. I have photographic proof of what they do. I have asked to housing to move me to another house because I feel that someone is going to get hurt before anything is done.

You should keep on at the local authority housing department as your rights as a tenant are being infringed. You also have the right to seek a court order - an interdict, which is a decree by the sheriff demanding the neighbours stop acting in a nuisance or damaging way. If they fail to obey this order they can be had up at court and fined or imprisoned. But sounds as if the local authority should be considering anti-social proceedings against them. Your solicitor can support you in dealing with them.

I took over part tenancy of a friend's house. I claimed rent and council tax benefits for the parts of the property I used. In 2011 my friend decided to move into the property and I informed the local authority of this. For the next four years the Council have been unable to furnish us with a proper Council Tax bill -for the full amount for both of us disregarding my benefits completely. Last year a council benefit inspector called to check on my benefit claim . We have now been informed that my friend (owner) is solely responsible for full council tax for the past four years and that the council have now reduced my status from that of a tenant to that of a lodger. Can they do this?

Converting the relationship to landlord and lodger is probably the right thing to do. This means that the council tax is payable by the owner alone but he can charge you a reasonable portion of it - he can't get single person's discount though. And technically, the council can take this length of time to deal with this. But their delay and lack of action seems totally unreasonable, and you should certainly complain to your local councillor and to the head of the finance department at the local authority.