John Spence
Senior Associate
Specialisms and expertise
- Residential and commercial landlord and tenant law
- Neighbour disputes
- Squatters
- Service charge disputes
- Boundary disputes
- Adverse possession claims
- Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 commercial lease renewals
- Contentious planning law matters including planning appeals to The Planning Inspectorate and challenging local authority planning enforcement action.
Past and present projects
- Advising a Plc hotel company on an appeal to The Planning Inspectorate in connecting with a planning enforcement action brought against it by Westminster City Council; the action relates to one of our client's hotels in the West End of London.
- Advised clients on appealing planning enforcement action brought directly against them by Mid Sussex District Council to remove a mobile telephone mast, which had full planning permission and been erected on our clients' land under a lucrative installation agreement with a mobile telephone company.
- Acted for clients in defending a criminal prosecution brought by Rother District Council in respect of a planning enforcement action regarding our clients' farm in East Sussex, and was able to avoid the clients incurring a substantial fine.
Types of client
John advises both private and company clients on a wide range of property related disputes. He represents both claimants and defendants within proceedings both at County Court and High Court level, and conducts some of his own advocacy in the lower courts. John has also acted for clients in Land Registry proceedings.
Achievements and other appointments
John is currently studying for the UK Certificate in Planning Law and Practice run by a consortium of universities which operate the joint distance learning MA/postgraduate diploma in Town & Country Planning. He is a member of the national Property Litigation Association.
The Dispute Resolution team is praised in Chambers UK 2009 for its “prompt, clear and effective responses”.
Profile
John joined Thomson Snell & Passmore in 2001.