Michelle Stevens-Hoare

Introduction & Contact details

Described in the directories as “...a compelling advocate....”, "...bright, academic and super organised" as well as “...committed..” and “...wonderful to use and doesn’t stand on ceremony...” Michelle is a very client focused, experienced, specialist property barrister.

Michelle continues to develop the quality and specialist nature of her successful property practice focusing in particular on real property, the more commercial aspects of property work including disputes around property developments and commercial property. In addition Michelle has considerable experience of contentious probate involving property.

Property related professional negligence (particularly involving solicitors and surveyors), partnership disputes franchising and other areas of commercial work with a property angle form the balance of Michelle’s practice.

Her appearance in the Legal 500 as a leading property practitioner each year since 2002 and has also been ranked within Chambers UK every year since 2003 is one indicator of her reputation and profile. In 2005 Michelle was appointed as a Deputy Adjudicator to HM Land Registry. The appointment draws on her extensive experience of property litigation and has allowed her to enhance her knowledge and skills further.

Mediation is the other string to Michelle’s bow. She has the benefit of a great deal of experience of mediation from both angles: representing clients in mediations and as a mediator. She is increasingly in demand in both capacities.

Publications

Michelle has contributed to the following publications:

D. Foskett, The Law and Practice of Compromise, Sweet & Maxwell; 7th Revised edition (15 July 2010)

E. Cousins & I. Clarke, Cousins: The Law of Mortgages, Sweet & Maxwell, 3rd edition (2010)

Qualifications

• LLB
• LLM (Property Law) with Merit
• ADR accredited mediator

Professional Associations

• Chancery Bar Association
• London Common Law & Commercial Bar Association (Secretary)
• Professional Negligence Bar Association
• Property Bar Association (Former Secretary & Committee Member)

Appointments

• Deputy Adjudicator to HM Land Registry (2005 to date)
• Member of the Civil Procedure Rule Committee (2000-2003)
• Member of Bar Council Pupillage Board (2003-2005)
• Member of Bar Standards Board Quality Assurance Committee & Pupillage Sub-Committee (2006 to date)

T:  020 7242 2523 (switchboard)
F:  020 7691 1234
E: brie@hardwicke.co.uk

Property

Property lies at the heart of Michelle’s practice. She has appeared in nine consecutive editions of The Legal 500 and Chambers UK as a leading property practitioner.

Michelle’s property work encompasses all aspects of property related work including disputes over the creation, ownership, transfer and protection of property interests or rights over property and the impact of relationship breakdowns, death and dissolution of partnerships. Her practice encompasses commercial, industrial, residential and agricultural property.

Michelle’s clients range from the institutional (including the LSC, local authorities and their pension funds) and corporate to the individual. They include property owners, developers and manages as wells landlords and tenants. Michelle is also attracting a growing amount of direct access clients who are generating a number of interesting cases.

Michelle has extensive experience of mediating property. She has frequently participated in mediations both representing clients and as a mediator. Michelle enjoys the mediation process and the flexibility it provides in seeking to find more constructive, and on occasion creative, solutions for her clients than litigation could have afforded them.

Land & Real Property

Land and real property disputes lie at the heart of Michelle’s practice which reflects her strength in, and love of, real property.

She has considerable experience of disputes involving easements, boundaries, mortgages and ownership issues between business partners, cohabitees and family members. In addition Michelle’s experience of restrictive covenant, overage provisions and other aspects of property development has grown significantly over the last few years. She is also has the depth of knowledge and experience to enable her to advise in relation to conveyancing and registration issues even in time critical circumstances.

Michelle has considerable experience of mediation as an advocate and a mediator in relation to such disputes.

Recent Work

• Advising on implied and prescriptive rights of way affecting a development in particular resisting an injunction and quantifying damages in lieu
• Advising on the protection of charging orders over alleged beneficial interests and a freezing orders against the registered title of multiple properties in a complex fraud
• Advising on the true construction of a restrictive covenants against the construction of residential premises in light of the construction of holiday cottages disposed of on long leases subject to strict user provisions
• Acting for the owner of a number of fields with planning permission for a golf course in the  recovery of an essential strip of land absorbed into the garden of 4 properties claiming adverse possession and necessitating complex expert evidence to establish the developer had moved walls and fences to facilitate the taking of additional land
• Advising on the compromise of a right to light claim arising out of the construction of a new office block in a largely residential but significantly built up area
• Acting on behalf of a mortgagee of leases where the one of two freeholders claims the creation of the leases was a fraud
• Advising on the enforcement of restrictive covenants against an innocent purchaser (with negligent solicitors) where a developer failed to pay an agreed release fee
• Drafting overage provisions for a substantial development plot where the overage was to be paid in stages including when development started and as each unit was sold
• Advising a large private residential estate upon the enforcement of provisions for recovering the costs of maintaining the roads and drives on the estate
  Mediating a right of way and parking dispute between 4 businesses using the same access road owned by one of the businesses
• Acting for owners of properties in a remote hamlet resisting an adverse possession of claim to the wastes in the centre of the hamlet.

Relevant Cases

Haq v Island Homes Housing Association & L B of Tower Hamlets [2011] EWCA Civ 805
Successful appeal against a finding of proprietary estoppel giving rise to a 60 year business tenancy at 15% market rent. Considering the relationship between and effect of “subject to contract” negotiations and proprietary estoppel

Barratt North London v JM Rowe (Investments) Ltd [2011] EWCA Civ 548 &  [2010] EWHC 1987
A conditional contract for purchase of land, redevelopment and lease back of part.  A successful claim for return of a deposit following rescission of the contract.  Defences based on construction, election, estoppel by convention and the principle that a party cannot benefit from its own wrong

Bashir v Ali [2011] EWCA Civ 707
The proper construction of a contract for purchase of land at auction. Sale of freehold subject to leases. The parties were unaware of a studio flat within the property and the contract made no mention of the studio flat. Successfully appealing to establish on true construction the sale was a sale of the freehold subject to the leases mentioned only.

Odunsi v Daodu  [2009] EWHC 1794
Claim for a beneficial interest pursuant to a common understanding constructive trust or proprietory estoppel

McPherson v Legal Services Commission - [2008] EWHC 2865 (Ch)
An appeal addressing the meaning of “preservation or recovery of property” for the purposes of the creation of a statutory charge in favour of the LSC

Haward v Soorma [2003] PLSCS 262
An appeal from the Solicitor to H M Land Registry concerning adverse possession and the acts of possession differed on different parts of the disputed land

Bank of Scotland v Etridge [1998] 4 All ER 705
Seminal and highly influential case concerning mortgages and undue influence

Landlord & Tenant - Commercial

Michelle’s commercial landlord and tenant work involves her in working for both landlords and tenants. In recent years she has had increasing involvement with substantial issues relating to 1954 Act applications, rent reviews, dilapidations, consents and the impact of insolvency on property interests. Michelle’s client’s range from the institutional (including local authorities and their pension funds) and corporate to the individual. She deals with both contentious and non-contentious matters.
 
Recent Work

• Acting for local authority forfeiting lease of car parks for arrears and resisting misrepresentation claim arised after renegotiation of lease.
• Resisting relief from forfeit for arrears of rent on the basis of other breaches including illegal user
• Acting for a landlord faced with claim based on breach of regulations relating to electrical installations
• Acting for a landlord pursued in connection with water leaks that emanated from other tenants units and a fire where the claims were based on the water ingress, the failure to secure adequate insurance and the failure to pursue insurance claims
• Mediating a dispute arising out of a number of floods, a failure to successfully claim on insurance, suspension of rent and failure to reinstate
• Advising on the terms of contracts for the construction of industrial units to be leased to the client
• Acting for a local authority landlord upon the forfeiture of a lease for failure to renovate in accordance with conditions in the lease where tenant proposed to demolish and rebuild
• Acting for a tenant in a rent review where the proper treatment of structural feature in repair but with a limited life upon was raised as preliminary issue

Relevant Cases

Hussain v Bahadair [2005] unreported
Concerned rectification after the omission of rent review provisions from commercial lease

Parsons v George & anor. [2004] EWCA Civ 912
Limitation in the context of an application for new tenancy under the 1954 Act

Webb v Sandown Sports Club Ltd [2000] EGCS 13
Application for new tenancy under the 1954 Act and the nature and timing of the liability for statutory compensation

Landlord & Tenant - Residential

Having been the foundation of her property work residential landlord & tenant no longer a main stay of her practice. Most of Michelle’s residential L&T work is focused on long leases including enfranchisement issues. Her years of experience stand her in good stead when called upon to deal with other matters including those few remaining Rent Act problems.
 
Recent Work

• Appealing a refusal of dispensation of the consultation provisions relating to service charges for works in excess of £250,0000
• Dispute about the existence and succession of a Rent Act tenancy and the effectiveness of a notice to quit served on the public trustee but addressed to the occupant were in issueAdvising up the ability to pursue the right of pre-emption against a purchaser after many years and limited information was known to the lessees
• Advising on the entitlement of various intermediate landlord’s upon enfranchisement

Probate & Trusts

Inheritance & Probate

Throughout her career Michelle specialism in work property related work has included contentious probate and Inheritance Act claims. Michelle has the skills and knowledge to handle the full range of inheritance and probate work including challenges to the validity of wills on the grounds of defective execution, lack of capacity and/or undue influence, to disputes relating to the construction of wills and trusts and the proper administration of estates.

Michelle’s case load has included disputes substantial estates including foreign property, paternity issues, complex property issues and the ownership of business interests.

Michelle works to ensure she achieves a balance between the need for sensitivity given the context of such disputes and provision of robust practical legal advice and representation.

Recent Work

• Advising on the estate of a war hero including the effect of trusts created pursuant to a “gift from the nation”
• Acting for natural children challenging the validity of a will signed 3 days before death on the date of a marriage disposing of the entirety of the £4M estate to the widow
• Acting for spouse resisting out of time Inheritance Act claims against a multi million estate by adult siblings based on regular annual gifts
• Acting on behalf of a minor child against an substantial intestate estate where the beneficiaries include an estranged wife and adult half siblings on an out of time

Inheritance Act Claims

• Acting for family beneficiaries challenging the validity of a will on the basis of benefiting solicitor’s undue influence
• A dispute over the administration of an estate involving a portfolio of properties and business by a beneficiary with a life interest

Trusts

Michelle has experience dealing with a variety of trusts including those holding property for religious purposes or the members of clubs, pensions and family trusts.

Recent Work

• Advising upon the control of a trust including premises within a religious community split into factions
• Advising upon the operation and potential winding up of a pension related trust
• Drafting a trust deed providing for the accommodation, education and maintenance of children
• Advising upon the winding up of a club and distribution of its assets

Trusts of Land

Disputes involving trusts of land have been a consistent feature of Michelle’s practice whether they arise on the breakdown of family or other relationships or out of joint ventures and development projects. Michelle brings her considerable interpersonal skills to such disputes where appropriate and has as a result is frequently used as a mediator as well.

Recent Work

• Acting in a claim by a builder for an interest in property which he developed on the understanding he acquired an interest
• Dispute about the existence and effect of a trust of land involving a mother and adult daughter between the beneficiaries of the estates of both
• Claim between ex-husband and wife over property acquired when reconciled and signed over the ex-husband on the basis of assurances
• Acting in a claim by mother against son for interest in property she invested in and provided funds for the construction of a granny annex

Professional Negligence

Michelle’s professional negligence practice dovetails well with her primary specialism in property. Her professional negligence work initially developed out of her property work and started in the late 1980s and early 1990s with claims by individuals and lenders claims against solicitors and surveyors relating to property transactions.

With a continued focus on professional negligence matters for over 20 years Michelle’s skills in handling such disputes are well hones and she has established a significant practice. She has extensive experience dealing with claims against solicitors and surveyors arising out of property transactions, property litigation and probate matters. Michelle’s knowledge and experience as a successful property specialist ensure she is able to deal with all aspects of such disputes.

In addition Michelle has significant experience of handling professional negligence claims against solicitors arising out of ancillary relief.

Recent Work

• Acting for a property investor against solicitors who failed to advice as the limitations on his security when a charge was not registered
• Acting for an individual sued under a guarantee for his companies liabilities for an unsuccessful joint venture in a Part 20 claim against his solicitors for failing to advise and taken instructions about the giving of a personal guarantee
• Acting for various individuals whose solicitors failed to ensure proper s42 notices were served or assigned to them when they were purchasing long leaseholds with a view to obtaining lease extensions
• Acting for a GPs partnership against solicitors for failing to register an option to purchase  the reversionary interest on their surgery resulting in substantial complex involving the funding arrangements for GPs practices
• Advising a husband against solicitors and counsel for failing to advise upon the terms and effect of a settlement granting a life interest with no provision for sale to an intervener in ancillary relief proceedings
• Advising on a claim by the purchasers of land with development potential for a failure to advise that the road fronting the property was unadopted and failing to advise a statutory declaration provided was unlikely to support a claim to a right of way
• Acting for qualifying lessee’s whose right to enfranchise was lost by virtue of a failure to apply for a vesting order with the necessary time limits
• Acting in a claim against a solicitor for providing inaccurate advice about the terms the leases offered on a new development and a failure to advise they contained onerous and uneconomic provision for the escalation of ground rent prior to the payment of a substantial non-refundable deposit

Relevant Cases

Jaison Property Developments Co Ltd v Swinhoe [2010] EWHC 2467
Part 20 claim against solicitors for failure to advice and obtain instructions relating to personal guarantee for companies liabilities in a property development joint venture.

BNP Mortgages Ltd v Barton Cook & Sons Ltd [1996] 1 EGLR 238
Concerned the negligent valuation of property for a mortgage lender

NCB Home Loans Corp. Ltd v Roger North [1995] EGCS 149

Commercial

Michelle has a significant successful professional negligence practice which focus particularly negligence arising out of property transactions or litigation and also ancillary relief proceedings. Michelle’s property work extends to disputes arising out of partnership owning, dealing in and developing property. In addition Michelle has significant experience in commercial disputes involving property, franchising and/or claims for restitution.

Franchising

Michelle has dealt with cases arising out of franchising for more than 14 years.
She brings her expertise in commercial property and landlord & tenant to the fore in dealing with franchise issues where franchisee and franchisor are also landlord and tenant or where the franchise agreement gives the franchisor rights over the franchisee’s premises.

In addition Michelle has had extensive experience acting for both franchisors and franchisees in misrepresentation claims. Franchises dealt with include Minuteman Press International plc, Claims Incorporated, Tax-Assist, Oven-Clean, Chem-dry and Kall-Kwik.

Recent Work

• Advising a franchisee on the availability of derogation from grant as a remedy and its implications
• Advising a number of franchisees in connection revised terms of new franchise agreements offered at end of franchise term
• Advising a lease owning franchisee in connection with franchisor’s remedies in respect of the premises
• Advising a franchisor as to the enforcement of restrictive covenants against competition and solicitation
• Acting in mediation for franchisees seeking early termination on good terms
• Advising franchisees in connection with the proposed termination for misrepresentation and/or repudiation of franchise agreement

Relevant Cases

MGB Printing & Design Ltd v Kall Kwik UK Limited  [2010] EWHC 624 (QB)
A successful claim against a franchisor for negligent advice and breach of contract. Advice given by franchisor, prior to the purchase of an existing franchise, as to the costs of improvements required by the franchisor.  Specific contract for marketing services via internet basis scheme which franchisor failed to install and operate properly

Peart Stevenson Associates Ltd v Holland [2008] EWHC 1834
A successful claim for fraudulent misrepresentation against franchisor. It also involved consideration of the effectiveness of exclusion and no reliance clauses

Partnership

Michelle advises and represents clients on all areas of partnership law, including partnership agreements, issues relating to property acquired for or by partners, LLPs and the consequences of retirement and dissolution. Her cases include claims for and against partnerships and disputes between current and former partners.

Recent Work

• Advising for property developer specialising in top end residential development in dispute with investor partners over the management and sale of partnership property
• Acting for working partner in arts and crafts partnership against investor who owned business premises who took over the business and exploited working partners designs
• Acting in a partnership dispute between family members over the management and disposal of partnership properties
• Mediating a family dispute over the dissolution of a farming business run in partnership and combined with a number of property development projects

Relevant Cases

Bond v Dunster Properties Ltd [2011]  EWCA Civ 455
Counterclaim for breach of terms of partnership agreement relating to property development. Claim for payment of related loan. Successfully resisting appeal of findings of fact on the basis of delay.

Stacey v Player [2001] All ER (D) 151 (Jan)
Considering the meaning and effect of an order for sale with joint conduct. A purported sale of a property, by a contract race, involving one partner alone. The validity of the sale and ability of the third party purchaser to rely on it. Further a legally-aided Claimant in a partnership property dispute. A trial of an ancillary issue funded by a third party, M, on the understanding that, if succeeded, the Claimant would seek a costs order. The impact of the legal aid certificate on the making of a costs order.