J B Leitch Ltd

Enjoying a national reach from its North West base, JB Leitch Ltd is a specialist advisor to industry-leading clients within the property management sector.

Starting from a commercial litigation background in 1997, JB Leitch rapidly built its residential landlord and tenant expertise before expanding as a practice focused on property legal services for large scale, institutional property and asset landlords and managers. The market-leading, niche firm now benefits from the largest team of property management and leasehold legal specialists in the country, assisted by a well-trained and knowledgeable legal support team.

Excellent results are consistently achieved for clients who are key players in property management, particularly freehold investors and managers of large-scale developments. The 130-strong firm, led by principal Jonathan Leitch and legal director Philip Parkinson, enjoys a strong reputation and national presence, with key clients in London, the North West and the South East of England in particular. During 2022, we were instructed on our highest number of reported cases to date. Predominantly in the Upper Tribunal, cases carried values in the multiple £millions and achieved high-profile press and sector coverage. Property litigation case volume in 2022 grew by a further 10% on the previous year, reflecting continued and sizeable growth in the reputation and expertise of the property litigation team.

JB Leitch’s non-contentious real estate team, established in 2014, and  headed by Robert Denman (formerly of Goldsmith Williams), continues to deliver a growing range of commercial real estate services to its clients under JB Leitch (Real Estate) Limited, including the successful and innovative remote ID verification service "IDentify".

ISO 27001 certification demonstrates ongoing commitment to investment in information technology, and the quality management of information security systems. The certification provides clear reassurance to clients that JB Leitch is a trusted legal partner which ensures every aspect of its services is delivered to the highest recognised standards.

The firm enjoys Investors in People Silver status in recognition of excellence in people development, trainee recruitment and Solicitor Pathway programmes to recognise and encourage career progression. JB Leitch is delighted to now be reaping the rewards of a strong team and home-grown talent.

Service offer: The firm’s emphasis on delivering a full range of legal solutions for property and asset managers allows it to offer clients specialist strength in depth across all aspects of long-leasehold property management, and a highly-specialised level of technical expertise. In particular,  the firm  extended its recognised specialism in fire safety to encompass wider building safety measures, carving a market niche in the representation of landlords of large-scale developments in press and sector-reported cases, and providing advice in significant breach of covenant claims, lease forfeiture and relief from forfeiture, major works, FTT appeals, right to manage, enfranchisement and private rented sector disputes on residential, mixed-use and commercial property. Clients include some of the country’s leading pension funds and major institutional landlords.

Advisory work by the property litigation team is increasing, advising landlord and management company clients on the costs of implementation of works such as cladding replacement and external wall schemes, the adequacy of fire doors, compartmentation and latent structural defects. The team also provides expert support with Tribunal applications for dispensation from statutory requirements, reasonableness of charges and recoverability of expenditure.

JB Leitch’s property litigation team has been proud to represent clients in a number of key reported cases in the last year, with significant decisions for our clients’ sector. Notably, the firm has advised on cases including HVM (Crystal House) Ltd v RMB 102 Ltd [2021], Adriatic Land 3 Limited v Leaseholders of Sesame Apartments [2021], RMB 102 Ltd v Leaseholders at Snowdon Mount [2021], The Lock Building Management Company Limited v Wilkinson [2021] and Barking Central Management Company (No.2) Ltd v Leaseholders of Lemonade Building, Bath House & 87 Axe Street.

As the firm continues to extend its niche service offering, in particular with reference to industry-leading health and safety expertise, notably in fire and building safety, it is expanding both the range of clients using its services and the range of services existing clients are using, without losing sight of its market in acting as the preferred advisors for some of England and Wales’ largest corporate landlords, freehold investors and property management companies.

Buildings safety niche expertise: Having established itself as a specialist in the management of claims relating to fire safety in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy, JB Leitch’s property litigation team has grown its service offer in this area to specialism in complex advisory and litigation work relating to wider issues of building safety at blocks throughout the UK. In particular, advice in relation to:

o Building Safety Act 2022
o Defective Premises Act 1972
o Commonhold & Leasehold Reform Act 2002
o Landlord & Tenant Act 1985
o Analysis of insurance policies, warranties and building documentation
o Analysis and advisory in respect of service charge and wider leasehold structures
o Consideration of action against contractors
o Issuing proceedings against developers, contractors, insurers and other parties

Work now also considers wider issues at a development beyond purely fire safety measures. The team advises and undertakes more work at First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal, in particular in relation to recoverability of service charges. Works of significant value require greater consideration as to whether service charges are recoverable, including when works should be charged for, whether they can be charged for and planning charging schemes under leases; many landlords are finding that large blocks require sizeable works, which has proven to be a successful  area for JB Leitch, as managing agents are not willing to proceed with major schemes of work without legal advice. With expertise in block management, existing relationships and understanding of complex service charge claims supports distinctive technical specialism in this area.

JB Leitch is establishing itself as a sector leader by building a stronger industry voice. Promoting in-house knowledge and expertise, commentary, guidance notes and advisory articles span a comprehensive range of topics including the impact and implications of the Building Safety Act, secondary legislation and regulations, the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act, major urgent building alterations, fire and building safety measures, listed and historical building management, the impact of technology in property management and law, dispensation and financial prejudice in respect of major works, service charge apportionment, vacant possession in commercial property lettings, insurance and service charges, breaches of covenant, service charge recovery, the Building Safety Fund and the Defective Premises Act, and have been published in titles including the Law Society Gazette (Property in Practice), Flat Living and News On The Block (magazine & online editions), ARMA AQD, the Business Post and Construction Forum. Over 50 articles produced by our team have been published during the last year. JB Leitch have also launched a programme of hybrid industry events in 2022, providing a focused analysis and discussion forum on topics such as building safety and leasehold reform.

Real estate:  JB Leitch Real Estate Ltd, continues to grow with connective services which deliver holistic legal solutions to property clients. Core work includes due diligence, post-action and stand-alone work including lease extensions, collective and individual enfranchisement, assignments, new leases and licences, interpretation of construction documentation, Right to Manage issues, staircasing and acquisition and disposal. The department maintained consistent growth in the last year and continues to expand its service offering to include end to end management of wayleave agreements and development of the new online verification service.

Systems, procedures and infrastructure: Achieving ISO 27001 was a significant step forward for J B Leitch’s in-house IT and Operations teams, demonstrating commitment to ensuring gold standard information management and security. The international standard presented by ISO, supports a  ‘best in class’ approach to receipt, processing, management and storage of data, implementing rigorous, world-class systems which are business critical for the work the firm does.

Further to this, a new Business Continuity and IT resiliency platform provides converged data recovery and backup. The firm has upgraded to “best in breed” software, ensuring total resilience and a failsafe system for disaster recovery and information backup.

Adding Value: The firm’s learning platform ‘JBL Learn’ supports internal colleagues with enhanced training and personal development opportunities, and for clients, the learning platform offers online CPD-certified training for in response to an industry need for quality, remote-access training on subject such as ground rent, service charge recovery, mutual enforcement covenants and new building safety legislation. To date, over 550 clients have benefitted from this free service.