FAQ

I need legal advice. How can I contact you?

For a quotation for advice about a legal matter concerning land, send me an email outlining the background and attaching any key documents. You don’t need to give all the details in this initial email, just a summary. I will let you know if I need more information before a quote can be given.

Should I seek legal advice now or should I wait?

If you have received a notification that legal proceedings have been started in a court or other tribunal (or a notification from the Land Registry that someone has made an application which might affect your land) then you should seek legal advice from a qualified lawyer, such as a barrister, without delay. Often there will be quite a limited time period for you to respond and your response may limit the legal arguments you are subsequently allowed to put forward when resisting the claim, so do not delay seeking legal advice.

Similarly if you have received a letter threatening to start legal proceedings, you should seek immediate legal advice. 

If the situation is that legal proceedings have not been threatened or started, the best course is that, If you are in any doubt, you should seek legal advice from a barrister now. The law, in many cases, imposes time limits which mean that if you have a legal claim which is otherwise valid, you may lose your rights if you do not start proceedings, make a Land Registry application, send a notice to another party, or take some other action, by a certain deadline. 

Even if you do not lose your rights completely, sometimes delay can mean that a court is less willing to exercise its discretion in your favour, or delay may cause practical problems in, for example, tracing witnesses, or obtaining documents held by other people or organisations which may, for example, be routinely destroyed after a certain period of time. It is true that in some other cases the best advice may be, on the contrary, to let sleeping dogs lie and not take any immediate action (apart from collecting and preserving evidence) as in certain circumstances allowing a situation to continue over a period of time can strengthen your legal case. However you will not know whether or not this applies to your situation unless and until you seek legal advice. If you seek advice earlier than (as it turns out) you needed to, nothing is lost, whereas if you delay, it is possible that opportunities might be lost.     

What parts of the country do you cover? 

Although the main tribunals concerned with freehold land are London-based, I travel widely throughout England and Wales (not Scotland or Northern Ireland where the law is different) as, in order to give the best advice, it is essential to view the land concerned.

What fees do you charge?

The types of work which barristers do fall into three broad categories:-

1. Written Opinion – a barrister’s assessment of how the law applies to a given situation and the likelihood of winning any litigation. If this is the first written Opinion then invariably it will be preceded by a conference/site visit if land and/or buildings are involved.  

2. Drafting a legal document required in litigation such as an Application or a Statement of Case. 

3. Representing you at a hearing at a court or other tribunal.

Fixed Fees for each item of work

The fee which I quote for each piece of work which you ask me to carry out will normally be a fixed fee (rather than an hourly charge) - e.g.

1. A fixed fee for a site visit/conference followed by a written Opinion. 

2. A fixed fee for drafting a document such an Application to the Land Registry, an Application to the Upper Tribunal, an Application to the High Court for an Injunction, a statement of case, or perhaps a further written Opinion (e.g. if there have been developments since the last written Opinion, or if further relevant historical documents have come to light).  

3. A fixed fee for representation on a particular day at a tribunal hearing.

I quote a fixed fee for each item taking into account how much work I expect will be involved in that item based on the then current situation and the information I then have. So, for example, if I have finished writing an Opinion and you ask me to quote for drafting an Application, I take account, when quoting for that work, of the information I have gathered about the case from the previous work of providing an Opinion. If you ask me to quote for drafting a Statement of Case I take account of the document from the other side, which the Statement of Case will be a reply to, in determining how much work will be involved in drafting the Statement of Case and, therefore, the fixed fee to quote. This means that I cannot, at the outset, quote an overall fixed fee for the entirety of the work which might end up being required over the lifetime of your whole case - I only quote for each piece of work at the time. But although I cannot quote, at the outset, for all of the barrister work which may eventually be needed, I may be able to give you a "ballpark" figure. It is difficult to give even a "ballpark" figure before I have done the work of providing an initial Opinion - not least because the exact route which the case is likely to take (which tribunal and/or what type of claim or application) needs to be assessed - but in most cases it is possible to provide a "ballpark" figure once an initial written Opinion has been provided. 

No charge for travel for site visit 

For the areas of law I practise in, I consider that an initial site visit is necessary in order to be sure of giving the best advice. So I make it a rule never to advise before seeing the site. I don't make any extra charge for a site visit, wherever it is in England or Wales  -  I can work whilst travelling so it is not lost time and I do not charge for travelling expenses.

Do you provide services on a 'no win no fee' basis?

I do not enter into "no win no fee" arrangements, nor do I enter into agreements with insurance companies or other third party funders. If you agree to the terms of a Client Care Letter I send you, you are liable to pay the fixed fee specified in that Client Care Letter for the work stated. If you have insurance, or are a member of a membership organisation which might pay for legal expenses, they might or might not reimburse you for some or all of my fee (and perhaps also pay some other costs such as the fee of the court or other tribunal) but that is a matter between you and them.

Can you represent me at a hearing? 

I represent clients at hearings in those specialist tribunals which are concerned with freehold land such as the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber – Land Registration Division) and the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) and in the Applications Court (part of the High Court), Court of Appeal and Supreme Court in London. If I am available on the date of your hearing I would normally be able to represent you providing I have previously drafted the Statement of Case (or Application Notice or Notice of Appeal as appropriate) for your case. 

If I have not drafted the Statement of Case but it has been drafted by a another barrister then, again, I would normally be able to represent you if you contact me in good time.

If, however, you contact me for the first time when you are given the date for the final hearing, having yourself previously drafted the Statement of Case (or equivalent) then, although I would consider with an open mind whether I could help, it would not always be feasible. This is not only because I would need time to carry out a site visit and analyse the facts to establish the best way of proceeding but also because often it is necessary to apply to the tribunal for permission to amend the Statement of Case (or equivalent), or take other action, to ensure that the arguments which could be made at the hearing are allowed to be made (and not precluded because, for example, they are not pleaded).

Do I need solicitors as well as a barrister? 

It is not normally necessary, in the areas of law I practise in - rights of way, adverse possession, and correcting mistakes in the Land Register - to engage solicitors when first seeking a legal Opinion - though in some cases it might be necessary to engage solicitors later on if there is litigation.

Do you provide free 30 minute telephone consultations? 

I am afraid not. I do not give advice by phone (why?) and in any case, for the reasons explained below, I do not provide free advice.

If I provided free initial conferences, I would have to charge higher fees thereafter to compensate. I would rather not do that: I prefer to charge lower fees by minimising overheads and not providing free initial conferences.

Like most barristers I operate on a low-overhead business model. Barristers typically have low fixed overheads spending from nothing to very little on advertising, usually relying on their website and their reputation. Barristers are self-employed and share office costs with other self-employed barristers in "chambers" and because barristers spend a lot of time either at hearings or working from home, a barristers' chambers will typically have less floor space, person for person, than offices do in general. Also chambers will not be on the high street, where property costs are higher, as barristers do not need a high street presence for marketing purposes.

Is there anything else I need to know?

Like all barristers I am a self-employed individual and how quickly I may be able to carry out any work (such as legal advice or legal drafting) which you ask me to provide a quotation for, or whether I am able to represent you at a particular tribunal hearing on a particular day (if you are seeking a quotation for that) will  depend on my other commitments at the time you ask me for the quotation. If the matter is urgent, please state this when asking for a quotation. 

Before I do any piece of work (“work” includes giving any legal advice) I will send you (by email) a Client Care Letter setting out my terms of business and stating the work which I will do and the fee for that piece of work. There is no obligation (on either side) unless and until you confirm your agreement to the terms in the Client Care Letter.

I am regulated by the Bar Standards Board. In addition to the information above about e.g. what kind of work I do, how I typically charge, and how to obtain a quotation, the regulations require me to give you the following additional links and information.

BSB register of barristers

Complaints Procedure 

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