Joanne Wicks

Practice

Joanne’s practice covers a broad range of Chancery and commercial work, with an emphasis on property litigation.

You name a kind of property and the chances are that Joanne will have litigated or advised about it: football stadia, landfill sites, municipal gardens and motorcycle racetracks have all featured in her practice, as well as the more usual run of development sites, retail parks, industrial estates, shops offices, houses and flats.

Joanne’s real property practice includes easements, restrictive covenants, land registration and adverse possession. In the commercial landlord and tenant field, she advises on and litigates about issues such as rent review, repairing and other leasehold obligations and business tenancies, whilst in relation to residential landlord and tenant law she deals, for example, with leasehold enfranchisement and service charge disputes.

In the wider commercial Chancery context, Joanne is involved in banking cases and advises on mortgages and guarantees as well as more generally on commercial contracts and trusts. She has acted for Lloyd’s in a number of cases concerning the rights and duties of Names operating in the Lloyd’s market.

She advises on and appears in cases concerning commercial and property fraud, including constructive trusts, the tracing of assets and breach of confidence.

A significant proportion of Joanne’s work concerns professional negligence, particularly that relating to property matters, and she acts for both claimants and defendants and their insurers.

Joanne’s litigation practice is not confined to the High Court and the County Court: she also appears in tribunals such as the Lands Tribunal and the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal and hearings before the Adjudicator to HM Land Registry. Joanne is happy to advise on alternative dispute resolution and appears as an advocate at mediations and arbitrations.

Notable cases

Joanne has a particular interest in the operation of equity on property interests and in recent years has appeared in significant cases in the Court of Appeal which discuss the relationship between constructive trusts, proprietary estoppel and contracts for the acquisition of land: Kilcarne Holdings v Targetfollow (Birmingham) Ltd [2004] EWHC 2547 and [2005] EWCA Civ 1355 and Yeoman’s Row Management Ltd v Cobbe [2005] EWHC 266 and [2006] EWCA Civ 1139, now currently on its way to the House of Lords and attracting a great deal of practitioner and academic interest.

Other interesting cases in the property field include James v Thomas [2007] EWCA Civ 1212 (cohabitees' rights under constructive trust of the family home); BHP Petroleum Great Britain v Chesterfield Properties Ltd [2001] 2 All ER 914 (relating to the impact of the Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1995 on personal covenants); Mean Fiddler Holdings v Islington LBC (No2) [2003] 3 EGLR 61 (which raised questions about the jurisdiction of the Lands Tribunal to deal with abuse of its processes) and Chung Ping Kwan v Lam Island Development Co Ltd [1997] AC 38 (a Privy Council decision concerning adverse possession in the context of leasehold interests).

Joanne went all the way to the House of Lords for Lloyd’s in Society of Lloyd’s v Robinson; Napier v Kershaw [1999] 1 WLR 756, a vitally important decision for Lloyd’s, ensuring that damages recovered by Names were held as security for their underwriting obligations. Her Lloyd’s-related work continued in Manning v Society of Lloyd’s [1998] Lloyd’s Rep IR 186, which considered whether Names had validly attached conditions to their acceptances of Lloyd’s settlement offer to the market.

Allegations of fraud have featured in Kent v M & L Management & Legal Ltd [2005] EWHC 2546, [2005] All ER (D) 251; there have been claims of illegitimate cash payments to follow up in TBL Realisations Plc v Awada [2004] EWHC 590 and consent orders to be unravelled in Qayoumi v Qayoumi. Joanne even dipped her toe into the murky waters of the criminal law in Re Rezvi [2004] EWHC 621, which looked at the impact of confiscation orders on the family home.

In the field of professional negligence, Joanne appeared in the controversial Court of Appeal case Walker v Geo H Medlicott & Sons [1999] 1 WLR 727, in which the court held that a disappointed beneficiary must first attempt to rectify a will before suing the solicitor who drafted it.

Memberships and publications

Joanne is a member of the Chancery Bar Association, the Property Bar Association and the Bar Pro Bono Panel. She is Consultant Editor of Butterworths Property Law Handbook (2007 edition).

Professional Reputation

Joanne prides herself on combining intellectual rigour with an easy approachable style which enhances relationships with clients and other members of the professional team.

The directories say:

Joanne Wicks impressed observers with her determinated rise to prominence in the real estate sector. 'A great team player'. Chambers & Partners, 2008.

The 'approachable' Joanne Wicks 'is an incredible fighter and is rightly promoted; ' she gets to the bottom of things', 'effective, unflappable advocacy', 'proactive' with 'a very good court manner'. Legal 500, 2007

The 'approachable' Joanne Wicks has a number of fans. Legal 500, 2006

'Diligent, intelligent and easy to work with'. Legal 500, 2005

Noted as a 'Leading Junior' for professional negligence in Legal 500, 2007.