Ashley Wilson - Dispute Resolution & Litigation

Dispute Resolution and Litigation

Litigation is an unwelcome experience at any time. Dealing with a dispute, be it small or large, can be a particularly demanding experience, especially where there is uncertainty around the cost implications and procedures involved.

Litigation

The Litigation Team at AWS LLP manages disputes for a wide range of clientele. We provide practical and specialist advice with the aim of resolving your dispute quickly and cost-effectively. Working in partnership with you it will always be our objective to:

- Focus on the issues that are paramount to you, the client
- Identifying the goals that you seek to achieve from litigation
- Avoid the cost and uncertainty of long-running litigation.

Court Costs

Whatever the cause for litigation, as your legal advisers, we will fully protect your interests at all times. A failure to appreciate the seriousness of the circumstances may lead to an adverse decision against a person/company which could have been avoided if the correct legal advice had been sought and obtained at an early stage.

Litigation can be very expensive. Even a victor in court can find that recovery of the costs involved is often difficult and carries further expense. Understanding our Clients’ aims means that we can then tailor our advice to give the best possible chance of achieving a successful outcome.
An honest assessment of the costs implication of the various options open to the Client will be provided to you at the outset of our consultation prior to the instigation of litigation or other legal action.

Negotiation & Settlement

Wherever possible, we always seek to settle disputes by negotiation as this is often in the best interests of our clients. Our Litigation Team will work with you to reach a mutually satisfactory outcome to both parties within the dispute.

There are occasions when court action is necessary and in these cicrumstances you can rest assured that our team will provide a robust and efficient presentation of your case in order to gain the best possible result.

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)

In many cases, disputes can be resolved by using alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods such as mediation and arbitration. These procedures tend to be more informal and less adversarial and indeed, more economical than engaging full Court proceedings.

Our Dispute Resolution and Litigation Specialists

Tony Wilson

Get In Touch

Legal Updates

Government consults on banning new leasehold flats, ground rent cap, and transition to commonhold

The Government has now opened a consultation in this regard titled “Moving to commonhold: banning leasehold for new flats”.

The consultation forms part of the next phase of leasehold reform and sits alongside the ongoing implementation of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 (‘The 2024 Act’) and the recently published draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill (‘The Bill’).

This seeks opinions from leaseholders, landlords and managing agents about how the Bill’s proposed ban on new residential leaseholds should be implemented in practice.

Enacting the remaining Law Commission recommendations relating to the Right to Manage

As we have discussed in our previous articles, it was announced in the King’s Speech that the Government’s legislative programme would include draft legislation on leasehold and commonhold reform: the “Draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill.”

This implied that the Government might leave the previous Conservative Government’s legislation, The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, on the shelf and perhaps implement a wider set of reforms consolidating the existing law following the recommendations made by the Law Commission.

Right to Manage – is a breach of the statutory framework fatal?

The right to manage is simple in concept but unfortunately complex in its application as there are a lot of procedural hurdles that participating flat owners can fall at and this can lead to litigation as of course their landlord needs to be sure whether management will validly vest. Consequently there are a huge number of cases taken by landlords challenging the validity of claims which some might find surprising.