Mr Edward Risso-Gill

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Introduction

Edward Risso-Gill has expertise in a broad range of property-related work, including commercial landlord and tenant and property-related professional negligence. He has also appeared in property-related appeals before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

Core Areas

Edward’s practice includes the following core areas:

Landlord and tenant (residential and commercial);

Leasehold enfranchisement;

Mortgages and charges;

Easements and boundaries;

Restrictive covenants;

Conveyancing;

Equitable proprietary remedies;

Co-ownership and trusts of land;

Property-related professional negligence;

Property-related insolvency.

Landlord and Tenant The majority of Edward’s landlord and tenant work has involved commercial leases, including central London high street lease renewals with well known national multiple lessees.

Covenants Edward's experience has included dealing with an attempt to enforce the burden of a positive covenant against freehold successors-in-title and assessing the effect of an historic restrictive covenant in the context of compulsory purchase.

Conveyancing Edward has particular expertise in dealing with claims for damages following the
breach of conveyancing contracts and collapsed conveyancing chains.

Property-related Professional Negligence Together with Tom Leech QC he was instructed for the claimants in group claims against solicitors by 214 buyers and lenders in Mediterranean property developments, for professional negligence, breach of trust and breach of contractual duties as escrow agents.

Other related Areas of Practice

Edward appeared before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, for the Government of Mauritius, in an appeal which concerned the interface between public and private law in relation to the termination of leases. Previous experience also includes appearing for the Government of Mauritius in a leading Mauritian property case concerning the proper construction of a purported ‘bail permanent’ (permanent lease) granted by the colonial government in 1901 (Raphael Fishing Company Ltd v State of Mauritius & Anor [2008] UKPC 43). He therefore has experience of dealing with the law of property under the Napoleonic code and related French jurisprudence.

Edward has, in addition, experience of advising a Commonwealth government in a dispute involving public and planning law, which included claims for compensation for the alleged expropriation of property as a result of the designation of land as a World Heritage Site.

 

Languages

French and Spanish

Publications

 'Value Judgment’ Estates Gazette 13 June 2009, p.88 (an examination of the Wroth v Tyler principle in the assessment of damages for failure to complete on a conveyance)

‘Home Truths’ Estates Gazette 10 July 2010, p.76 (anticipating the new avenue of defence opened up by the decision of the Supreme Court in Manchester City Corporation v Pinnock for Hammersmith v Monk, joint tenancy/notice to quit cases).