I HAVE finally got around to making my will, and want to make my close friend my executor, not any of my children. They are grown up but not practical (they all live abroad or away from Scotland). Is this legal, or can my eldest, who thinks he should be executor anyway although he lives in Wales, step in and take the friend’s place?

There is no rule of law in Scotland that gives children any preference to be executor if you make a will, nor indeed is there any pecking order at all among siblings anyway. The choice is entirely yours. Only way your eldest could be executor is if the friend declines or refuses the appointment, or has died before you, in which case any other child of yours could ask the court to be made executor. But your will rules the family and there should be no argument.

I have a shop leased. It is in a tenement block in Glasgow. The factors are not good at doing repairs and seem to bill us very highly every six months but never answer calls about supplying breakdowns of costs. Can I get together with the flat owners upstairs and change factors?

Probably not. The title deeds will give rights to owners and not tenants, for the likes of engaging factors, and as you are only a tenant, your powers depend on your lease, which will almost certainly not contain powers to vote in any factor’s meeting. But complain to your landlord and hope he/she/they will act. But as they are not paying the common charges, they might be less than enthusiastic to help.

I hired a company to fit a gas boiler. Is it legal for them to pass on details about the job to another person entirely without my consent, or as they have said they might do, include it on their website?

You will have heard of GDPR – the European-wide General Data Protection Regulation that came in in May. Under that, any company holding your personal information may only use it as agreed by you, and you can force them to delete/destroy your data once it is no longer needed. If they ignore that they will be in serious trouble with the Information Commissioner – www.ico.org.uk

My stationary car was hit by another car. The police were called and discovered the driver had no licence, mot, tax or insurance. I have had to pay over £650 to have my car repaired. I did not wish to claim my insurance as I would lose my no claim bonus and also my premiums would increase. Is there anything I can do?

You can always sue the driver but if he is not insured he will have no money. You may be able to make some recovery from the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB), which is an organisation set up by Britain’s insurance company as a compensator of last resort where a driver causes injury or damage and is not insured. There are strict rules and procedures that govern claims, but there is an excellent website www.mib.org.uk or tel. 01908 830001. They will even pay your lawyer’s costs if a claim is successful.