Practice Areas
Nick is a Social Housing, Property, Public Law, Equality and Human Rights specialist. Nick has particular expertise in statutory interpretation. Nick is head of Five Paper’s Real Property Practice Group and a member of the Housing, Landlord and Tenant and Public Law Groups.
He regularly acts for public bodies in cases where property and public law interact: e.g. Simawi v LB Haringey & SoS CLG (intervening) [2019] EWCA Civ 1770, where he successfully argued that the rules relating to succession to council tenancies were compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. Other leading Housing cases that Nick was involved in include: Rahimi v Westminster CC [2024] Civ 73 – Succession and Surrender of a joint tenancy; Rowe v LB Haringey [2022] EWCA Civ 1370 – homelessness; Gateway HA v (1) Personal Reps of Ali (2) Begum [2020] EWCA Civ 1339 – Service of Notices to Quit under Law of property (Misc. provisions) Act 1994, s. 18; Aldwyck v Forward HA [2019] EWCA Civ 1334 – Possession and Equality Act 2010, PSED defences.
He also acts for commercial entities: e.g. he was successful in the Court of Appeal for Global 100 Limited in establishing, amongst other things, that defences to possession proceedings should, where appropriate, be determined summarily: Global 100 Ltd. v Laleva [2021] EWCA Civ 1835.