Joseph Steadman

Property

Joseph has been recognised by The Legal 500 since 2023 as a Leading Junior (Tier 5) in Property Litigation, and by Chambers and Partners since 2023 as an Up-and-coming Junior in Real Estate Litigation.

In his property practice, Joseph is regularly instructed in litigation involving commercial or residential property, as well as providing advice in non-contentious matters. He enjoys working both on his own and as part of a team of counsel.

As part of a counsel team, Joseph’s property experience includes:

• acting (with Rupert Reed KC and Simon Atkinson) on behalf of the widow of the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia in a relation to a claim by a Liechtenstein foundation to recover a £28m London property which was allegedly transferred to her without authority (one of The Lawyer’s Top 20 Cases in 2023);
• acting (with John McGhee KC) on behalf of a landlord in a multi-million-pound dispute concerning whether the tenant is liable to reimburse the landlord for VAT on management fees;
• acting (with Jonathan Seitler KC) on behalf of a property developer in relation to a dispute with one of its leaseholders concerning the impact or otherwise of the proposed development on its rights under the lease;
• acting (with John Wardell KC) in a claim against a mortgage lender and its LPA receivers for wrongfully repossessing a property in Belgravia and subsequently selling it at an undervalue;
• preparing (with Jonathan Seitler KC) a successful application for a stay of a claim for rent arrears arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic in light of the imminent passage into law of the Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill;
• preparing (with Jonathan Seitler KC) a successful application for permission to appeal and a stay of enforcement in what became London Trocadero (2015) LLP v Picturehouse Cinemas Limited [2022] EWCA Civ 1021;
• acting (with Jonathan Seitler KC) for a parking company in a dispute with the former and current owners of a shopping centre concerning the defective redevelopment of a multi-storey car park;
• assisting Jonathan Seitler KC and Emily McKechnie on a claim for fraudulent misrepresentation and conspiracy to deceive arising out of the sale of a holiday park in Cornwall (Francis v Knapper & ors [2016] EWHC 3093 (QB)); and
• assisting Martin Hutchings KC in resisting an appeal to the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal in a dispute over land in Nevis.

Joseph’s unled residential landlord and tenant experience includes:

• acting for the successful appellant in Hook and another v Hawkins [2019] UKUT 147 (LC), an appeal to the Upper Tribunal concerning the status of the spouse of an agricultural worker under the Rent (Agriculture) Act 1976 after the worker leaves the home and the spouses are divorced—the only reported case dealing with the interplay between the Rent (Agriculture) Act 1976 and the Matrimonial Homes Act 1983;
• acting for the freeholder in first-tier tribunal proceedings concerning who should bear the cost of repairing a “green” roof which formed part of a residential development;
• acting for the landlord in first-tier tribunal proceedings concerning the reasonableness of service charges and dispensation from consultation requirements;
• advising a landlord in relation to a series of leases purportedly executed by an employee with no authority to do so;
• acting on behalf of a tenant seeking leasehold enfranchisement where the landlord could not be found;
• acting for the landlord in a dispute concerning the amount of rent due under an assured shorthold tenancy, where the tenant alleged a lower rent was agreed orally than was recorded in the tenancy agreement;
• acting on behalf of a tenant in a claim for disrepair to his penthouse apartment overlooking Buckingham Palace, which included complex questions of construction concerning the extent of the tenant’s demise;
• advising a residential tenant in relation to a claim for disrepair, including the effect of historic settlement agreements;
• advising a trustee-in-bankruptcy concerning the occupation of the bankrupt’s property by a tenant pursuant to a long lease entered into after the bankruptcy order;
• advising a freeholder in relation to the presence of potentially unsafe cladding in a residential development; and
• acting on behalf of a residential landlord in a claim against a tenant who vacated early, alleging that the property was unsafe.

Joseph’s unled commercial landlord and tenant experience includes:

• acting on behalf of a landlord in a claim involving rent arrears which accrued during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which the tenant alleged that it was not liable because the landlord had forfeited the lease by changing the locks;
• advising a sub-tenant in relation to novel questions – not previously considered by the courts – about the interaction of the court’s power to grant relief from forfeiture and the statutory renewal of tenancies under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954;
• advising and acting landlords and tenants in relation to claims in respect of terminal dilapidations;
• advising a landlord in relation to a request for consent to change of use;
• acting for a primary care centre in a claim for possession and rent arrears against the operator of a café, which included an allegation that there had been an oral modification to a long lease of the premises;
• advising the assignee of a commercial lease on its standing to seek a lease renewal where the validity of the assignment was in question;
• acting for landlords and tenants in relation to contested and uncontested lease renewals;
• acting for a tenant on a claim for £5 million in capital contributions due under a lease; and
• acting for the tenant of one of the largest abattoir premises in Europe, seeking relief from forfeiture in order to allow new finance to be raised.

Joseph’s unled real property experience includes:

• advising in relation to the relocation of a right of way (both at common law and under the terms of a contractual right to do so);
• advising a company whether an agreement it had entered into was a lease or a licence;
• acting for both claimants and defendants in various adverse possession claims to land ranging from a converted pub to a church garden;
• successfully striking out a claim under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 brought by one set of neighbours against another;
• acting on behalf of a landowner in resisting an application for an injunction to prevent a partridge shoot pending the determination of a claim for adverse possession;
• acting for the defendants in trespass and private nuisance proceedings, where their defence was that they had the benefit of express and/or prescriptive easements;
• acting for the executor of an estate in a claim to update or modify a restriction so as to replace the deceased’s name with the executor’s name;
• acting for a neighbour in relation to a claim for breach of a covenant against building; and
• acting on behalf of the freeholder of a large residential development in a dispute over rights to parking spaces, said to arise by proprietary estoppel.

Joseph’s unled trusts experience in the property context includes:

• acting for the claimant in seeking a right to occupy residential and commercial premises under a constructive trust or proprietary estoppel, and alternatively to restitution of the value of improvements undertaken to the property;
• acting for one sibling against another in a claim under TLATA for the sale of an investment property and declarations as to their respective beneficial interests; and
• advising and acting for claimants and defendants in various disputes over shared property following relationship breakdown.

Joseph’s unled professional negligence experience in the property context includes:

• advising about claims for professional negligence against a firm of solicitors in relation to a property purchase;
• acting for the defendant vendor in a claim for professional negligence and misrepresentation concerning the presence of Japanese knotweed;
• advising in relation to potential claims for professional negligence against solicitors and surveyors in relation to the compromise of a dispute concerning disrepair; and
• advising in relation to claims for professional negligence against a building contractor and a building consultant under a JCT contract.

Joseph has also acted in numerous possession claims – including against trespassers, tenants and mortgagors – and in several claims to enforce judgments against property through interim and final charging orders and orders for sale. Joseph’s involvement is particularly sought when the circumstances are complex or involve a cross-over with another area of the law—an illustrative example is a claim for a final charging order where the defendant alleged he had no beneficial interest in the property by virtue of an order in matrimonial proceedings.

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Pensions

Joseph has been recognised by the Legal 500 since 2022 as a Rising Star at the Pensions Bar. He has experience of acting in contentious and non-contentious pensions matters for trustees, employers, members and the Regulator. Joseph has gained a particular understanding of the regimes applicable to public sector and industry-wide schemes, as well as an interest in the cross-overs between pensions and public law.

For five years between 2017 and 2022, Joseph combined his practice in Chambers with a consultancy role in the pensions, incentives and employment team at a Magic Circle law firm. Through that role, he gained extensive expertise and experience across the spectrum of pensions work, which he brings to bear in his own advice and advocacy. Highlights include:

• involvement (with Brian Green KC) in the Court of Appeal proceedings concerning BT’s ability to change the basis for calculating increases to pensions in payment from RPI to CPI (or another alternative index) [2018] EWCA Civ 2694;
• involvement in the development of the UK’s first collective defined contribution (defined in legislation as “collective money purchase”) scheme for Royal Mail Group plc;
• advising trustees in relation to rectification and “corrective construction” where the rules of a scheme provided for a 5% floor on increases to pensions in payment;
• advising trustees in relation to the validity of an amendment made in the 1990s, in the absence of clear evidence that an actuarial certificate had been obtained, including consideration of the so-called “presumption of regularity”;
• advising an employer in relation to an error in the calculation of its PPF levy; and
• advising trustees in relation to the exercise of discretionary powers to pay death benefits.

Joseph’s contentious pensions experience in his own right includes:

• acting (with Brian Green KC) on behalf of the trustee of the BBC Pension Scheme in proceedings brought by the BBC concerning whether the scheme rules permit changes to be made to future service benefits and member contributions for active members;
• appearing on behalf of the trustee of the Barclays Bank UK Retirement Fund at the hearing of Barclay’s application for the sanctioning of a Ring-Fencing Transfer Scheme (the first such application to be heard by the High Court) – Joseph appeared as the only unled junior at the CMC ([2018] EWHC 168), where he successfully obtained the Court’s permission for the trustee to take part, and was led by Michael Tennet KC at the sanction hearing itself ([2018] EWHC 472);
• advising and acting (with Michael Tennet KC) for a trustee in a dispute with an employer concerning whether the trustee had power under the scheme’s governing documentation to appoint and remunerate an independent chair of its board without the consent of the employer;
• advising a trustee about the benefits due to a member, and in particular the member’s Guaranteed Minimum Pension and the application of anti-franking legislation;
• advising and acting for trustees and members in various claims concerning the exercise of discretionary powers to pay lump sum death benefits;
• acting for a judgment creditor in relation to an application for a Blight v Brewster order permitting enforcement against assets held in the judgment debtor’s SIPP;
• acting (with Peter Mitchell KC) for a spouse in a dispute with the trustees of a pension scheme concerning the implementation of a Pension Sharing Order;
• acting for an employer in relation to a claim brought by a former employee who had transferred out his benefits to a scam scheme, and alleged that the employer had breached its duty of care to him by permitting the transfer;
• successfully defending a claim for underpayment of pension (by reference to the member’s GMP) brought against the trustee of a pension scheme;
• advising in claims against SIPP providers for breach of fiduciary duty and/or professional negligence, and in particular the effectiveness of wide-ranging exclusions of liability in the governing documents;
• advising the trustee of a pension scheme in relation to an application to set aside default judgment obtained by a member;
• advising a personal pension provider in a dispute concerning a series of policies subscribed for since the 1980s, and in particular whether the claimant had a right to guaranteed annuity rates under the terms of the policies or otherwise;
• advising one trustee of a SSAS concerning its ability to enforce a loan made to a company of which the other trustee was the sole director; and
• advising in relation to complaints to the pensions ombudsman.

Joseph also has experience of acting (most recently with Andrew Mold KC) in pensions-related professional negligence disputes.

Joseph’s non-contentious pensions experience in his own right includes:

• advising the trustees of a pension scheme concerning the validity of a proposed amendment;
• advising a pension scheme employer in relation to a mis-executed pension scheme deed;
• advising an industry body concerning its members’ cessation of participation in an industry-wide pension scheme, and in particular the application of the consultation regulations;
• advising an employer in relation to the terms of a flexible apportionment arrangement;
• advising an employer in relation to a draft Deed of Termination and associated indemnities following the winding up of a defined contribution scheme;
• advising an employer in relation to the classes of beneficiaries for various categories of benefit under its pension scheme and other policies following the death of an employee;
• advising an employer concerning its plans to implement new pension arrangements for certain of its employees; and
• advising an individual pension scheme member as to whether he had lost a protected lifetime allowance by virtue of his membership of a statutory pension scheme.

In regulatory matters, Joseph acts both for the Regulator and for other Directly Affected Parties. His work in this area has included:

• successfully appearing (as sole counsel) in the Upper Tribunal on behalf of the Regulator, in relation to the appointment of an independent trustee of a pension scheme which it was alleged had not been constituted as a trust (RP Medplant Ltd v The Pensions Regulator [2017] UKUT 0385 (TCC)); and
• acting (as part of a team of counsel) for the Sponsoring Employer in relation to proceedings brought by the Pensions Regulator under s231 of the Pensions Act 2004 (link to the Regulator’s section 89 report).

In the early part of 2017, Joseph spent several months on secondment with the Pensions Regulator. Some of the highlights of his work there included:

• assisting with the preparation of pleadings and evidence in a claim concerning a multi- million-pound pensions liberation scam;
• advising on the regulation of employer-related investments and employer-related loans; and
• advising and drafting in connection with several cases before the Determinations Panel and the Upper Tribunal.

Joseph has also been instructed to act as legal clerk to the Regulator’s Determinations Panel.

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Commercial disputes

Joseph has an established commercial practice. As well as acting in a wide variety of “ordinary” contractual disputes, he is especially sought-after in cases involving fraud or asset-tracing, and has experience of gaining freezing injunctions, proprietary injunctions, and other forms of interim relief. Within the commercial context, Joseph also has substantial partnership, company and insolvency experience.

Joseph’s commercial fraud and asset-tracing experience includes:

• acting (with Rupert Reed KC and Simon Atkinson) on behalf of the widow of the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia in a relation to a claim by a Liechtenstein foundation to recover a £28m London property which was allegedly transferred to her without authority (one of The Lawyer’s Top 20 Cases in 2023);
• acting (with Andrew Mold KC) on behalf of an investor in a claim for fraudulent misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty and conspiracy by a group of his fellow investors;
• acting (with James Bailey KC) in a series of claims arising out of an alleged multi-million-pound fraud involving amongst other things a purported investment in Bitcoin;
• acting (with Jonathan Hilliard KC and Graeme Halkerston) for a claimant in successfully obtaining a pre-action freezing injunction in the BVI to restrain assets in Monaco, in support of claims that the defendant – for whom the assets were held as nominee pursuant to written declarations of trust – himself held those assets on oral trusts for the claimant;
• acting (with Rupert Reed KC and Jonathan Chew) for the claimants in a multi-million pound fraud in relation to a property development in London, which included an analysis of steps taken in Guernsey to take control of the relevant companies (a subsequent hearing was reported as Aurora Developments Ltd v Delta Holdings Ltd [2018] EWHC 1047 (Ch));
• acting (unled, against a silk and senior junior) for the sixth defendant in an application for the claimant’s claim against the sixth defendant – a multi-million-pound fraud claim in relation to the purchase of two helicopters – to be struck out;
• acting for a judgment creditor in relation to an application for a Blight v Brewster order permitting enforcement against assets held in the judgment debtor’s SIPP;
• advising in relation to stolen confidential documents, the potential deployment of those documents in court, and the availability of injunctions requiring delivery up; and
• successfully resisting (unled against a specialist commercial silk) an application for permission to appeal against a refusal to grant summary judgment in a multi-million-pound civil fraud case.

Joseph’s partnership, company and insolvency experience (often also with a fraud angle) includes:

• acting (with Marcia Shekerdemian KC) for the claimant company in relation to a multi- million-pound claim for breach of fiduciary duty against one of its directors, along with two unfair prejudice petitions and a derivative claim;
• acting (with James Bailey KC) for the wife of an alleged fraudster in a tracing claim by the liquidator of the husband’s companies;
• acting (with Graeme Halkerston KC) in relation to efforts made by the majority shareholders of a company to expropriate the minority shareholder by way of a purported dilution of his shareholding and a proposed forfeiture of those shares;
• acting in relation to a dispute between the members of a farming partnership concerning amongst other things the terms of the partnership;
• acting for the liquidators of a company on an application for them to be replaced with fraud and investigation specialists;
• acting in relation to a dispute between the members of a property development partnership in which allegations of fraud and breach of fiduciary duty have been made by one partner against the other;
• acting for the petitioner in an unfair prejudice petition in respect of a company in Guernsey (with subsidiaries in Brazil and England) following manoeuvres by the majority shareholders to reduce the value of a minority shareholder’s shares;
• acting for the petitioner in an unfair prejudice petition and an application for urgent interim relief removing a director from office;
• acting for a partner in a firm of solicitors in an unfair prejudice petition following steps taken by the majority which drastically reduced the value of his capital account;
• making and resisting applications to set aside statutory demands (including in one case a statutory demand for £63 billion against a FTSE100 company), applications for injunctions to restrain presentation of winding-up petitions, and applications for validation orders; and
• advising and acting in relation to applications to restore companies to the register, extend the time for registering charges, or to rectify the register.

Joseph’s experience of contractual disputes includes:

• advising (with Rupert Reed KC) a reinsurer based in the UAE concerning the application of waiver and estoppel as a bar to rescission for material non-disclosure;
• acting (with Jonathan Seitler KC) for the claimant in a claim for millions of pounds in damages following the summary termination of his membership of an online short lettings platform;
• acting in several claims seeking commission on behalf of agents and introducers;
• acting for the claimant in a dispute concerning whether the defendant is liable to pay for services provided before the signature of a formal contract;
• acting for the claimant in a dispute concerning whether an estate agent’s fees had been earned in circumstances where the purchaser had been found by the vendor;
• acting for an introducer in a dispute concerning its entitlement to a profit share;
• acting for the claimants in a complex contractual dispute involving 436 separate contracts, each stipulating a different rate of interest for late payment, and advising on the prospects of arguing that the stipulated rates were overridden by the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998;
• advising and acting for the claimants in their claim to recover a deposit which had allegedly been wrongly paid out by the defendant stakeholder;
• acting in an application to re-open an appeal against summary judgment where the appellant’s case was that a loan had been orally written off and replaced by an oral profit- sharing agreement;
• advising and acting for a contractor in relation to a claim for sub-standard welding works carried out to a restaurant at Centre Point;
• acting in a claim for breach of contract against a high-street retailer, in relation to its failure to pay subscription fees for a business intelligence software package;
• acting for the operator of an online spread-betting platform in relation to alleged abusive trading strategies employed by one of its clients;
• advising and acting for a member of a golf club whose life membership was summarily terminated;
• acting for the claimant, a Punjabi singer, in a claim against a music video producer for breach of contract;
• acting for a firm of matrimonial solicitors in seeking to recover fees from a former client, whose defence was that the solicitors were estopped from recovering them to the extent that they were not paid by the client’s husband;
• advising in relation to the competing jurisdiction of the Bangladeshi, English and Swiss courts concerning disputes over a series of agreements, and the availability of striking-out, anti-suit injunctions and other relief; and
• acting for a mortgage lender in defending a claim for damages resulting from its delay in making available the mortgage advance.

Joseph’s advisory experience includes:

• advising the lead claimant in a large financial services class action on the terms of a power of attorney;
• advising an isotonic sports drink manufacturer on the terms of international distribution agreements;
• advising a leading provider of marine products as to whether its ordering processes successfully incorporated its standard terms; and
• advising the former shareholders of a dissolved company concerning the beneficial ownership of an offshore investment bond which was intended to fund pension contributions but had been overlooked in the administration.

Joseph also has experience of advising and acting for commercial clients at mediation and in relation to other forms of ADR. He has also acted on the decision-making side, assisting Sir William Blackburne in relation to the independent redress scheme for clients of RBS’s global restructuring group.

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