Charles Russell Speechlys LLP

Real Estate Disputes

Partner

He has experience in all types of real estate disputes and real estate focussed professional negligence disputes and acts for a range of clients including institutional landlords, commercial tenants and occupiers, residential developers, insolvency practitioners, utilities companies, and both primary and secondary lenders. His client base ranges from major international companies to small businesses and individuals.

His key areas of work include: professional negligence, energy wayleaves and other energy sector related work, judicial review, contentious and non-contentious lease renewals under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, possession claims, dilapidations, break options, service charge disputes, rent review and alienation issues. He also has significant experience of property insolvency issues, compulsory purchase orders (jointly leading the firm’s contentious compulsory purchase team), all aspects of development disputes and disputes between adjoining landowners including rights of way and boundary disputes.

He is also a member of the property litigation association and the compulsory purchase association.

Richard is admitted to practise in England and Wales.

Experience Acted for wagamama in its successful defence of a claim brought against it seeking to force it to enter into a lease following the landlord’s failure to comply with its contractual obligations (Performance Retail (General Partner) Ltd v wagamama Ltd [2021] EWHC 564 (Ch) Acted for a number of clients (landlords and tenants) affected by the Covid-19 Pandemic advising on issues such as rent arrears and other liabilities, Government protections, the effect of the Code of Practice commercial property relationships during the Pandemic, and providing associated property-insolvency advice Successfully appealed the certificate of appropriate alternative development given by the local authority to our clients so as to support their ongoing blight notice compensation claim against Highways England (Lockwood v Highways England Co Ltd [2019] UKUT 104 Acted for a number of property owners, investors and occupiers (including The Ernest Cook Trust) adversely affected by the proposed HS2 railway line including petitioning (and appearing before) the Select Committee of the House of Commons during the parliamentary process on Phase 1 of the Bill Represented a major civil service pension fund in defending an action brought by an adjacent landowner seeking to directly enforce the terms of a s.106 agreement against my clients. Succeeded both in the High Court and Court of Appeal (Milebush Properties Ltd v Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council and Others [2010] EWHC 1022 (Ch) and [2011] EWCA Civ 270