SQE1 sample questions

A woman instructs a solicitor to form a private company limited by shares for her new catering business. She will be the only shareholder and a director. The company will adopt the model articles.

She asks the solicitor to name her brother, who lives abroad, as a second director because she thinks this will reassure the company's bank. Her brother does not yet know about the business, but she is sure that he would not object. He has already verified his identity with Companies House as a director of another company.

The solicitor has prepared the application for registration, the statement of capital and initial shareholdings and the statement of compliance.

A private limited company runs a weekly street market under a licence granted by a local authority. Last month the authority revoked the licence after receiving complaints about noise. It did not tell the company about the complaints or give it any opportunity to respond before revoking the licence.

The company wants to reopen the market as soon as possible. A solicitor is preparing a claim for judicial review on its behalf. The company's managing director, who has run markets for 20 years, instructs the solicitor to claim only damages of £40,000 for lost trade, because he believes that the court will not interfere with the authority's decision itself.

A company issued a claim form against a man for the price of goods it had sold him. The claim form stated that particulars of claim would follow. It was deemed served on the man on Tuesday 7 September, and the particulars of claim were deemed served on him on Thursday 16 September.

The man disputes the claim and wants to defend it.

A consumer charity believes that the regulator of solicitors in England and Wales is failing to protect consumers when it makes rules on the price information that firms must publish. The charity has also received complaints from its members about poor service by individual firms of solicitors. It wants the regulator's performance to be reviewed by the body with statutory power to oversee it.

A minister makes a statutory instrument under powers conferred by an Act of Parliament. The enabling Act provides that instruments made under it are 'subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.'

A furniture retailer employs a man as a delivery driver. The retailer's written rules, which it enforces strictly, forbid drivers to reverse a lorry unless a colleague is guiding them. The man had been fully trained and had a clean driving record.

While making a delivery to a customer's house, the man reversed the retailer's lorry without a guide and hit a pedestrian, who was badly injured. The pedestrian was not a customer and had no dealings with the retailer. The retailer says that it was not at fault in any way.

A solicitor acts for a private company in negotiating a long-term supply contract with a customer. The company has three directors, who are also its only shareholders. One of the directors, a woman who holds 20% of the shares, has been the solicitor's main contact on the matter.

The woman now tells the solicitor that she may sell her shares to an outside buyer. She asks for advice on how the supply contract will affect the value of her shares, and she offers to pay for that advice herself.

In 2016, while the United Kingdom was a member of the European Union, a haulage company brought a claim in the High Court against a public body. It relied on a directly applicable EU Regulation which entitled it to a refund of certain charges it had paid.

The public body relied on a section of an Act of Parliament passed in 2010, which prohibited any such refund. The section was inconsistent with the Regulation. Nothing in the 2010 Act referred to EU law or to the European Communities Act 1972. The public body argued that the 2010 Act, as the more recent statute, should prevail.

A man contracted to buy a specific vintage car from a dealer for £45,000. In breach of contract, the dealer sold the car to someone else and could not deliver it. A car of the same specification was available elsewhere for £51,000, and the man bought that substitute car for £51,000. No money had been paid under the original contract before the dealer's breach.