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Thousands of leaseholders will be refunded unfair ground rents and allowed to buy the freehold of their property at a discounted price after a crackdown on property developers by the competition watchdog. Persimmon Homes and Aviva have agreed to offer the refunds after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) uncovered “troubling evidence” that leasehold homeowners …

I fear I will never be able to see my family again because of Home Office blunders. I applied for a spouse visa in July 2020. I didn’t receive a decision, but in January it emailed to say it had recently sent me a biometric residence permit (it hadn’t) with the wrong expiry date, and …

The new £50 note goes into circulation on Wednesday – but with consumers increasingly going cashless, for millions of people it may be months or even years before they see or touch one. It’s been around for 40 years, but the £50 note doesn’t have a great image: there is a perception that aside from …

At 90, I walk my lurcher twice a day (1.5 miles minimum), do the cryptic crossword (93% success this year), take more than two services a month at Methodist churches, preach once a month in my parish church, and am looking forward to the annual Wainwright challenge (climbing 2,176ft Tarn Crag) and the reopening of …

The nation’s online shopping habit is causing a cardboard shortage as empty delivery boxes are hoarded in homes or stuck in council recycling bins. UK households have amassed 135m cardboard boxes during the pandemic, keeping valuable raw material out of the recycling chain and pushing up packaging prices, according to the packaging specialist DS Smith. …