Since joining chambers, Peter has split his practice between family and civil law. He practices principally in ancillary relief, but has advanced incrementally into and beyond the areas of law that touch on families. So he has a significant practice in trusts of land (and generally the law concerning unmarried couples), Inheritance Act disputes, and insolvency. He regularly conducts ancillary relief cases where there are issues of ownership concerning third parties, whether that third party is a relative or a trustee in bankruptcy. Presently he has leave to appeal in the Court of Appeal on a case dealing with issue estoppel and the relationship between decisions in the Chancery Division and Family Division, in.
From that base he has also developed a practice in land law, and landlord and tenant, related matters, ranging from boundary disputes and rights of way, through to commercial forfeitures, residential repossessions, and anti-social behaviour possessions and injunctions, and has handled cases before the Valuation Tribunal, the Land Registry Adjudicator, rating cases in the Magistrates, and even appeared in the Crown Court for third parties affected by orders concerning proceeds of crime . He handles professional negligence cases, principally in relation to family law and conveyancing.
Welcoming the chance to handle technical matters, Peter appeared in one of the lead cases on payment protection insurance before the Mercantile Court in Manchester in 2010, and also advised on another of those cases, Harrison v Black Horse, which went to the Court of Appeal .
He has acted on behalf of solicitors’ firms, and a number of local authorities and housing associations, as well as private individuals.
Nowadays civil law is often thought of as synonymous with personal injury law. Peter also handles PI cases including fatal accidents, and road traffic accident fraud (appearing in Locke v Stuart in Liverpool this year).
Peter has lectured on, amongst other things, antisocial possession orders, housing disrepair (to the surveyors of St Helens MBC), and trusts of land claims between unmarried couples.
