Julian Greenhill KC

Property

Julian is a property specialist. Property litigation is the focus of most of his work. He is widely recognised for his property work and his work encompasses all aspects of property, real estate, and landlord and tenant litigation.

He has a particular expertise in disputes arising from the development of land. Over the last decade Julian has acted for or against many of the leading national developers and institutional investors in cases arising from a wide variety of development contracts and leases, following his appearance in the House of Lords in one of the most notable development and overage cases, Chartbrook v Persimmon Homes Limited [2009] 1 AC 1101.

Julian’s property expertise includes:

• Property development agreements including development funding agreements, option agreements, joint ventures, promotion agreements, and collaboration agreements. In 2018 Julian gave a Blundell Lecture on ‘Clauses That Catch: Agreements and Development’.
• Sale and purchase agreements including overage and clawback arrangements.
• Land Registration and real property disputes (easements, restrictive covenants etc) especially arising in the context of commercial or development land.
• Business landlord and tenant disputes including guarantees and leasehold covenants, rent review, and business lease renewal.
• Telecoms and electronic communications, acting for and advising landowners faced with applications from telecoms operators under the “new” Electronic Communications Code 2017 including Cornerstone v St Giles General Partner Ltd [2019] UKUT 103 (LC).
• Utilities infrastructure including water and sewerage, gas and electricity supply.
• Major infrastructure contracts and property rights including docks, harbours, airports, road and utility tunnels.
• Insurance claims relating to real property and disputes over insurance covenants in business leases.
• Property-related insolvency including administration, receivership and CVAs.
• Arbitration of commercial property and property-related disputes.
• Equitable and pre-emptive remedies in relation to disputes involving property including specific performance and injunctive relief including freezing orders. Julian has particular experience of contractual rectification claims having acted in the leading rectification case of Chartbrook Limited v Persimmon Homes [2009] AC 1101 (voted one of the fifteen most important cases of the last 125 years in an ICLR poll in 2015) and in numerous other rectification cases.
• Professional negligence work in a property context including claims arising from any of the above areas brought against solicitors, surveyors, valuers, insurance brokers, and land agents.

Notable cases include:

• The Tropical Zoo Limited v Hounslow London Borough [2024] EWHC 1240 (Ch) – acting for the claimant tenant in a dispute over the forfeiture of a 125-year lease of a large site adjacent to Heathrow Airport.
• Old Street Retail Trustee (Jersey) No 1 Limited and anr v Argos Limited [2024] (Ch) – acting for the defendant national retailer in a dispute over whether a user covenant tied to Use Class A1 under the pre-2020 Use Classes Order permitted fulfillment of online sales from the premises.
• Burges Salmon LLP v Glass Wharf JV Limited [2023] (Ch) – acting for the defendant landlord in a dispute over liability to replace corroded pipework forming part of the heating and cooling system throughout a modern office block.
• Bodorgan Properties Limited v (1) Southern Electricity Power Distribution (2) Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero [2023] (KBD) – acting for the defendant electricity undertaker in a dispute over the validity of a wayleave supporting power distribution to 146,000 consumers.
• Acting for the owner / landlord of a series of poultry farms in a four-week £multi-million arbitration in London against a renewable energy company for defects in the installation and maintenance of a biomass renewable-energy heating systems which formed the largest biomass project in the UK at the time (2021).
• Fishbourne Developments Limited v Stephens [2020] EWCA Civ 1704 – acting in the High Court and in the Court of Appeal for the successful defendant / respondent landowner in a dispute over whether an option to purchase farmland in West Sussex for development had been triggered by the claimant option holder.
• Colt Group Limited v Unicourt Wandsworth LLP [2020] EWHC 2549 (Ch); [2021] 1 P&CR DG3 – acting for the landlord defending a Part 8 claim concerning a dispute over the interpretation of the insurance provisions in a 99-year commercial headlease of the main pre-sales site of a major luxury car dealership.
• Cornerstone v St Giles General Partner Ltd [2019] UKUT 103 (LC) – acting for the landowner of a flagship development in the middle of the West End of London in a case under the New Code in which the telecoms operator was seeking code rights to make a Multi-Skilled Visit. The operator was forced to limit the scope of its code rights and to increase dramatically the size of indemnity offered.
• Bamlet v Newton (2019)(CC, Southampton) – acting for the claimant farmer in a dispute over the scope and interpretation of a right of way to a farm with development potential.
• Zinc Cobham 1 Limited v Adda Hotels [2018] EWHC 1025 (Ch) – high profile £110 million claim by the landlord of ten Hilton-operated hotels seeking specific performance of covenants in the hotel leases requiring Hilton to adhere to its own published hotel standards.
• Advising a high-net worth individual in relation to a threatened nuisance by reason of noise and vibration damage to his listed home and its antique contents caused by refurbishment of a neighbouring office building in Central London (2018).
• Pennant v Watkin Jones & Sons Limited [2018] EWHC 790 (Ch) – acting for the defendant developer of a housing development in North Wales in a dispute over the scope and exercise of a right to lay a sewer over a historic listed bridge in order to drain the development.
• Vivienne Westwood Ltd v Conduit Street Development Ltd [2017] EWHC 350 (Ch); [2017] L&TR 23 – the first case applying the penalty principle in the landlord and tenant field in England, a principle recently re-cast by the Supreme Court in Cavendish v Makdessi.
• TCG Pubs Ltd (In administration) v The Master and Wardens or Governors of the Art of Mystery of the Girdlers of London [2017] EWHC 772 (Ch) – acting for the tenant in a claim for exercise of a right of pre-emption and wrongful refusal of consent to assign a valuable London pub property to another pub operator as part of a sale in a pre-pack administration.
• Hanson Marine Limited v H Sivyer Transport Limited (2016) ChD – successful expedition application in an urgent and publically important possession claim acting on behalf of Hanson to obtain possession of a large site beside the Thames needed to supply the concrete to build the eastern section of the “Super Sewer”.
• Denouement Pty v Shaffer (2016) ChD – acting for a Queensland-based service company in a long-running and complex possession claim against the daughter of the late screenwriter and playwright, Anthony Shaffer, for possession of a valuable mews dwelling in Knightsbridge.
• UK Leasing Brighton v Topland Neptune Limited [2015] EWHC 53 (Ch); [2015] 2 P&CR – reported case elaborating the implications of the leading guarantees case of K/S Victoria v House of Fraser [2012] Ch 497 for covenants granting consent to assign conditional on the provision of a repeat parent company guarantee, dealing with the mechanism for unravelling an unlawful assignment without contravening the 1995 Act.
• K/S Habro Gatwick v Scottish & Newcastle Limited [2015] EWHC 2084 (Ch) – acting and appearing at trial for the third-party, GLH Hotels, defending a claim for an indemnity in relation to sums payable by the original tenant under an “old tenancy” of a hotel near Gatwick Airport following disclaimer by the insolvent tenant.
• Tindall Cobham 1 Limited v Adda Hotels [2014] EWCA Civ 1215; [2015] 1 P&CR 5 – the first case to explore the implications of the leading guarantees case of K/S Victoria v House of Fraser [2012] Ch 497 for covenants granting consent to assign conditional on the provision of a repeat parent company guarantee.
• Manchester Ship Canal Company Limited v United Utilities Plc [2014] 1 WLR 2576 (Supreme Court) – acting and appearing for the successful appellant sewerage undertaker in a dispute over the interpretation of the Water Industry Act 1991 governing the lawfulness of over one hundred separate discharges of water and treated effluent into the Manchester Ship Canal (earlier decisions at [2013] 1 WLR 2570 and [2012] EWHC 232 (Ch)).
• Blueco Limited v BWAT Retail Nominee (1) Limited [2014] EWCA Civ 154 – appearing for the successful respondents both at trial and on appeal in a dispute over the interpretation of a pre-emptive right to acquire a share in the rental income from the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.
• Avon Estates Limited v Evans [2013] EWHC 1635 (Ch) – appearing at trial for the defendants in a substantial boundary dispute between two landowners in Warwickshire.
• Clarence House Limited v National Westminster Bank Plc [2010] 1 WLR 1216 (CA) – appearing for the successful appellant bank in the leading case on the effect of a “virtual assignment” of a lease.
• Chartbrook Limited v Persimmon Homes Limited [2009] 1 AC 1101 (House of Lords) – appearing for the successful appellants a dispute over the interpretation of the overage provisions in a development agreement. This case was recently voted one of the fifteen most important cases decided in the last 150 years (read more).

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