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The number of cash sales on houses worth over half a million pounds was up 19.6 per cent in 2014, according to figures from Registers of Scotland(RoS). A total of 599 homes that were sold for upwards of £500,000 were paid for in cash last year, compared to 501 in 2013.

A hundred more police officers are being trained to combat increasing levels of wildlife crime across Scotland. About 250 wildlife crimes occurred between April 2014 and last month.

A report setting out the progress made throughout 2014 to implement the UK government's counter-terrorism strategy has been published by the home secretary Theresa May. It outlines the current threat to the country from terrorism and how the government is responding using the four-strand structure o

The Faculty of Advocates is to present its eighthWorld Intellectual Property Day Conference and is expecting once again to have to post the “Full House” signs. The free event will be held on Friday, 24 April, and those wishing to attend are being encouraged to register soon to avoid disappointme

From left: Danielle, Ryan Ritchie, Roy Balfour and Dylan (all from Rossie Young People’s Trust) present the clock to Tom Murray, chairman of Gillespie Macandrew and associate Donald Winskill.

Lord Prosser The Faculty of Advocates paid tribute to William David Prosser, Lord Prosser, former dean of Faculty and a senator of the College of Justice who has died aged 80.

An environmental group which challenged a Scottish local authority’s decision to grant planning permission for a new secondary school to be built in the Fife countryside has had a petition for judicial review dismissed. A judge in the Court of Session ruled that the council’s decision was “law

Police Scotland has been collecting and storing the phone numbers of people its officers have frisked under stop and search powers – including searches which revealed no criminality. A secret memo from last year gave the single force the power to record phone numbers and store them in its national

The draft clauses of a new Scotland bill have been criticised by a House of Commons committee as not meeting the Smith Commission brief, lacking credibility and being a “bit of a guddle”. The political and constitutional reform committee said the draft clauses for legislation intended to transfe

The UK government is to move ahead with plans to force asylum seekers in Scotland to lodge appeals in England amid legal challenges to the move. In January the Sunday Herald reported that the Home Office intended to alter the asylum system by forcing anyone who wanted to appeal to stay in the UK to

The number of people granting power of attorney (POA) to a friend or relative has increased following a campaign to raise awareness of the facility. The number of people who have registered a POA with the Office of the Public Guardian has gone up by about a third – 34 per cent – over the last 12

Lawyers, financial advisors and accountants have become the cyber criminal’s target of choice, Glasgow-based Weightmans LLP has warned. As global cyber-crime rises, the organisations increasingly at risk of attack are those involved in M&A business as they are privy to market-moving informatio

The licensing of air weapons has today come a step closer following the publication of the Scottish parliament’s local government and regenerationcommittee’s stage one report on the Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Bill. Whilst supporting plans to license air weapons, the committee is callin

A lecturer who was deceived into believing he was the father of his former wife’s child has been awarded £100,000 in repaid maintenance payments. The man, who cannot be named, found out that the child, who was conceived via IVF treatment, was created with the sperm of the woman’s former boyfrie

A Scots lawyer who made dozens of false legal aid claims has been struck off the roll of solicitors after being found guilty of “professional misconduct”. Massimo D’Alvito submitted at least 81 accounts between October 2009 and October 2011 which contained “fictitious outcomes” - prompting