Stuart Miles

Experience

Stuart has considerable understanding of the legal implications in management of property developments of all sizes, ranging from small share of freehold conversions, to extensive developments that contain multiple blocks of mixed commercial and residential use. Such disputes include service charge arrears, ground rent reviews, subletting and structural alterations.

Additionally, he has extensive experience of operating in the First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) and the Land Registration Division.

Matters he has worked on have been decided in both the Upper Tribunal and Court of Appeal.

Stuart has experience of achieving settlements through Alternative Dispute Resolution. He has participated in mediations.

Experience includes:

• Achieving a favourable settlement of a case from a high street lender pursuing a proprietary tracing claim against a freehold owner of a residential apartment.
• Conducting litigation in respect of a claim to set aside an expert’s decision assessing rent pursuant to a rent review clause.
• Obtaining a successful settlement against a commercial tenant who had made alterations outside of their demise to the retained part of a landlord’s building.
• Successfully acted for a tenant who had been sued for rent arrears, using an estoppel based defence.
• Dealing with an application for an unopposed renewal for a business tenant.
• Advising a tenant following the service of a schedule of dilapidations.
• Application to the First Tier Tribunal to dispense with the requirements to consult under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. Proactively using Daejan Investments Limited v Benson to obtain urgent dispensation in an instance where it was anticipated that a water pump-set was due for imminent catastrophic failure.
• Dealing with the capability of the assignment of the right to recover service charges to the collection of participating leaseholders of an enfranchised block of flats, pursuant to Section 141 of the Law of Property Act 1925.
• Dealing with the recovery of substantial service charges for a registered management company involving a dispute with a leaseholder who owned 36 flats at the development. Tribunal application involved multiple heads of items challenged in the Scott schedules.
• Obtaining the freehold on behalf of leaseholders in respect of their absentee landlord, pursuant to an application for a vesting order.
• Managing a group action against a landlord for claims for misrepresentation during the sales, the defective build of the estate and breaches of covenants in the leases. Dealing with multiple limitation deadlines and handling standstill agreements.
• Successfully rectifying a title in proceedings in the Land Registration Division.
• Forfeiture of a lease with a defence from the assignee of the lease of waiving the right to forfeit, due to the demand being sent to the assignor of the lease and dealing with the evidential burden of whether the demand was received.
• Dealing with relief from forfeiture applications of severely dilapidated premises whereby the premises were brought back to standard expected by the covenants in the leases. Liaising with Surveyor to achieve a successful outcome.
• Dealing with an application for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal over when the legal and beneficial interest in a freehold title passes during an aborted transaction to sell the freehold title.

Career

After gaining his law degree at Lancaster University and his LPC at the College of Law in York, Stuart qualified at a specialist residential property litigation firm in Liverpool. This allowed him to acquire experience dealing with the minefield of case law and legislation which governs this area.

He then moved to London in 2018 to expand his practice in property litigation and experience other disciplines within dispute resolution.

He joined Wright Hassall in 2024.

Memberships

• Property Litigation Association

Interests

Outside of work Stuart enjoys most team sports. Football, rugby and cricket are his main passions.

He also enjoys travel and spending time with his family.