Mark Studer

Property CV

Mark's property work embraces all aspects of real property law, including mortgages and charges, easements and boundaries, restrictive covenants, conveyancing (included registered land and adverse possession), options, equitable proprietary remedies and co-ownership and trusts of land. 

Recent / notable cases include:

• Appearing for and advising the trustees of the residents' association of a substantial private residential estate (100 + residents) in contentious litigation as to the property rights and obligations of residents under the trust and the reformation of their constitution and the right of the trustees to the payment of costs from trust funds in the court proceedings, there being issues as to the court's jurisdiction in relation to the adoption of a new deed of trust for the estate (Grender v Dresden [2009] WTLR 379).
  
  
• Successfully obtaining for several institutional occupiers of a private estate an injunction and declaration that the local authority's proposal to instal an unmanned code-operated barrier controlling entry to the estate would be a substantial interference with the rights of occupiers under a local Act of Parliament, necessitating a consideration of the local authority's powers and duties and permissible interference with rights of way over private streets (Sisters of the Sacred Heart & Others v The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames [2007] EWHC 563 Ch).
  
  
• Appearing for applicants to the Lands Tribunal to modify restrictive covenants contained in four conveyances restricting density on a development plot in Gerrards Cross; issues as to the proper measure of compensation following the decision of the Court of Appeal in Winter v Traditional and Contemporary Contracts Ltd [2005] and the consequences for costs in the applications; applications granted in respect of three conveyances and refused in respect of the fourth (Foley v. Edgcliffe-Johnson [2006]).
  
  
• Advising a diocesan board for education as to the merits of a claim for reverter in relation to the site of a former Church of England school which had closed for educational purposes; requiring detailed consideration of the provisions of the School Sites Acts and the Reverter of Sites Act in relation to gifts of land to ministers and churchwardens; and the capital gains tax consequences of land ceasing to be held on charitable trusts.