EXPERTISE
Peter specialises in disrepair, acting for public and private landlords, and leading the fight against the blight of opportunistic CFA disrepair claims sweeping the country. As well as fighting dozens of disrepair trials each year, he is an expert at defences, applications to strike-out cases and/or experts, allocation hearings, adverse & wasted costs orders, injunctions, trials, appeals, etc.
Peter has always worked solely in housing and anti-social behaviour matters. He spent his working life before coming to the bar in housing, one way or another – as voluntary campaigner, research assistant to Government regeneration studies, local authority housing & regeneration manager, and as national research manager for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Peter enjoys speaking at housing law conferences, doing national and local, in-house training (court skills, latest legislation, disrepair, etc), and is a confident mediator (CEDR).
His advice, drafting, and other written work is quick, accurate, and effective in person, on paper, and in court. He is always accessible to clients, welcomes clients’ direct queries and requests, and is happy to give formal or informal frank, pragmatic and tactical advice from before a case is started and while it develops. He is happy to travel, and accept instructions throughout the North-West, North-East, Yorkshire, East Midlands, Lincolnshire, North Wales and, if asked, well beyond.
As well as excelling on substantive law, he is also good on points of civil procedure, evidence, costs, and other aspects of running and winning cases, effectively and economically, getting costs (including wasted costs) against opponents wherever justified.
Housing Law
Residential Possession
Peter deals with all aspects of Residential Possession, including:
- All residential tenancies or licences
- Discretionary and mandatory grounds
- Tenancy fraud
- Trespassers
- Public Law Defences, including Human Rights/Proportionality & Equality Act
- Cases involving tenants lacking mental capacity
- Hoarding
- Tenancy breach
Disrepair
Peter deals with all aspects of disrepair, acting on behalf of social landlords (and, albeit less frequently, private sector tenants and landlords) and lessees/lessors, including:
- Strong, thorough, quick, and effective defences to claims and counterclaims, with quick, reliable advice on merits and quantum
- Strike-outs (of remedies, experts and cases), allocations, injunctions & and other tactical defence responses
- Experienced at fighting on paper and in court for public landlords against CFA and other claims-handler cases
- The new Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018
Anti-Social Behaviour
- All aspects of the 2014 Act, Parts 1 to 6, including everything to do with injunctions & committals, absolute grounds, Premises Closure orders (houses, flats, legal high shops, brothels, hostels, hotels, etc)
- Gang Injunctions
- Protection from Harassment Act 1977
- Statutory Nuisance (EPA 1990) prosecutions
Additional Areas
- Injunctions & Committals in relation to tenancy breach (eg, access for repairs, works, gas, electric, hoarding)
- HMO and selective licensing prosecutions and appeals
- Unlawful Eviction (for landlord or tenant), including emergency injunctions
- Right to Buy
- Vexatious Litigants and other persistent nuisances
- Succession
- Leases & Forfeiture, incl applying/opposing relief from forfeiture
- Mediation
- Unfair Tenancy Terms and the Consumer Rights Act 2015
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Peter can accept instructions directly from non-solicitors, through Direct Access.
He advises public landlords on tenancy agreements, particularly in relation to unfair tenancy terms.
- member of Middle Temple Scholarships and Awards Committee
- member of Lord Neuberger’s Entry to the Bar Committee (Bar Council)
- member of Derek Woods QC’s Review of Pupillage Committee (Bar Standards Board)
- received two major Middle Temple scholarships and passed the Bar Vocational Course with “Outstanding” (Manchester, 2003)
