Richard is an expert in all aspects of property disputes and leads a team of eight lawyers.

Richard acts for clients including Greggs, Card Factory, Iceland, B&M, Heron, Jewson, Yorkshire Building Society, Original Factory Shop, Skipton Properties and Hartley Group.  Before joining Gordons, Richard was responsible for relationships with institutional retail landlords including Hammerson and Land Securities. Richard is well regarded as a technical expert who isolates how law can be applied to practical situations to provide clients with solutions to the problems they are facing. He specialises in landlord and tenant work, insolvency and complex real property disputes (including mineral rights and access).

He is sought after for training sessions, which are practical as well as entertaining. He has provided training to RICS and the British Council of Shopping Centres.

He has written for Property Week and the Estates Gazette and is the former Chair of the Property Litigation Association in the North of England.

Richard deals with our property litigation matters and is again a commercially minded and very knowledgeable solicitor. Unusually for litigation solicitors he gives you a yes or no answer which is a massive plus,”   in-house surveyor, major retail client.

Reported cases:

  • Cairns & Moore v Committee Painshawfield Estate [2023] UKUT 119 (LC) – application to modify an unusual restrictive covenant
  • Burras Otley v Johnson & others [2023] EWHC 2022 (Ch) – appeal as to the interpretation of a reservations and grants of rights of way in 1930s and 1940s conveyances and the application of the rule against perpetuities
  • TFS Stores Ltd v The Designer Retail Outlet Centres (Mansfield) Ltd and others [2019] EWHC 1363 (Ch) – contracting out of the 1954 Act – authority and formal requirements
  • Newman v Clarke [2016] EWHC 2959 (Ch) – trusts of property and the “self-dealing” rule