Hodge Jones & Allen

Sophie Bell

Sophie Bell is a Partner in the Housing team at Hodge Jones & Allen. She has specialised in housing law for 18 years. Her work spans a wide range of practice areas covering all aspects of landlord and tenant and social housing law, including possession and eviction, homelessness reviews and appeals, judicial review cases and claims for disrepair. Sophie is a strong advocate of tenant’s rights and seeks to ensure those rights are fully protected. She takes an efficient, robust and compassionate approach to all her cases, representing individuals against various opponents including councils, housing associations and private landlords. She works with many highly vulnerable clients, particularly in relation to threatened possession matters, often successfully ensuring that not only is a possession order or eviction avoided but that the landlords take further steps to assist their tenants. Sophie has a wide knowledge of disrepair law and has recently achieved settlement in a number of cases whereby tenants have achieved substantial awards of damages, in addition to the completion of works to the property. Sophie also regularly takes on more complex housing cases. She secured a positive outcome for an elderly and vulnerable client who had been unlawfully evicted from his home by a property developer. Her client’s name was not on the title deeds for the property and the lawful owner appeared to be deceased, yet Sophie was able to obtain an order to declare that the client was the sole legal owner of the house. Claims were successfully brought against the property company and persons unknown, with Sophie obtaining a possession order and a five-figure compensation payout for her client. Sophie believes that tenants should be empowered wherever possible to stand up for their rights. She regularly seeks to find ways to ensure that the necessary information is made available to those who need it most to try and minimise the number of tenants and homeless individuals who do not know which way to turn.

Jayesh Kunwardia

Partner

Bahareh Amani

Bahareh joined the Property Dispute and Dispute Resolution team on 1st June 2023 from the Housing and Property Dispute team which she was a part of since November 2018. She has specialised in litigation and property disputes since qualifying in 2010 and joined Hodge Jones & Allen in December 2018 as a Senior Associate, and was promoted to Partner in May 2022. Bahareh has experience in the area of civil litigation since 2005. Bahareh is a tenacious litigator and is recognised for her strengths in negotiating settlements to benefit her clients. Bahareh has also led and supervised leading cases in the Court of Appeal as well as challenging by way of a High Court Appeal . She has conducted a variety of cases, including property related litigation, contested possession claims, disputes arising for misrepresentation on sales and purchases and Party Wall Act claims. She has also acted for Freeholders and Leaseholders on disputes arising out of service charges, ground rent and mismanagement of leasehold interests. She has acted for clients on a group action, securing positive outcomes for her clients without the need for contested trial. Bahareh has acted on both residential and commercial property disputes, including possession proceedings arising for breaches of lease and covenants, forfeiture claims as well as Lease renewals and claims arising from business leases contracted in or out of the 1954 Landlord and Tenant Act. Since joining the Dispute Resolution team she has acted for both Claimants in relation to claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependant) Act 1975, as well as executors, seeking challenged to wills based upon capacity and undue influence and claims for beneficial interests in property. Bahareh’s approach to property disputes and litigation has been to consider alternative means and to avoid court process and litigation, and where possible to address matters with the opponent in a conciliatory approach, without the need for litigation however, where this is not possible, Bahareh is a confident and strong litigator in areas of property disputes and enjoys presenting her client’s cases raising points of law, and finding arguments to further her client’s case.