Rebecca is a specialist property and planning barrister whose practice builds upon her extensive previous experience as a solicitor.

Rebecca has a busy practice in the County Court, High Court and First-tier Tribunal. She also undertakes inquiry work, including planning enforcement and compulsory purchase. She has been led in the High Court and Court of Appeal on both property and planning matters.

Rebecca qualified as a solicitor in 2015. Her career as a solicitor included working at Magic Circle and City firms as a transactional real estate lawyer on high-value deals for clients including investment funds and developers. Rebecca also worked as a law reform lawyer at the Law Commission where she contributed to the Commission’s projects on enfranchisement and right to manage and undertook a review of the Commission’s recommendations to reform the law of forfeiture.

Rebecca’s experience before coming to the Bar includes working as a lawyer in the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government. In that role, she advised on local and neighbourhood planning and the 2018 revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework. As a result, she has a thorough understanding of the legislative process and Ministerial decision-making, as well as the genesis of planning policy.

Rebecca is frequently instructed to advise on complex areas of property law, often involving the construction of leases or other documents; on housing matters including claims for possession; on service charge disputes; and on conveyancing issues including land registration and easements.

On the planning side of her practice, Rebecca has experience acting (both led and unled) for appellants and local authorities at section 78 and enforcement inquiries. She regularly advises on potential challenges to the grant or refusal of planning permission and on enforcement matters.

Regularly providing lectures and training on property and planning law issues, in the past year, Rebecca has spoken on a range of topics which include planning case law in 2023, notices in possession proceedings, the law of forfeiture, the Building Safety Act 2022, leasehold reform, and planning law issues in property litigation.

Rebecca is a contributor to Garner’s Environmental Law, for which she writes the chapter on the management and shipment of waste, and also headnotes for the Journal of Environmental and Planning Law.

She is a member of the Attorney General’s junior junior scheme; the Property Bar Association; and the Planning and Environment Bar Association.

Qualifications

• Cambridge University, Trinity Hall – BA Archaeology and Anthropology

• BPP University – Graduate Diploma in Law (Distinction)

Publications

• “Lease terms inadmissible in construing repairing obligations in freehold transfers” – LexisPSL, 11 July 2022

• “Millions of leaseholders to benefit from Law Commission reforms” – LexisPSL, 5 August 2020

• “Leasehold reform: a long time coming” – New Law Journal, 5 August 2020