Lee Stutt

Lee has acted as solicitor with conduct in countless cases, giving him relevant key experience in:

• Real estate / property law
• Chancery / probate work 
• TOLATA
• Constructive trusts
• International contract disputes
• Freezing orders
• Data theft
• Property injunctions
• Passing off and IP
• Nuisance
• Property damage
• Structural trespass
• Misrepresentation
• Specific performance
• Express and prescriptive easements
• Rescission
• Leasehold enfranchisement
• Land grabs
• 1954 Act renewals
• Dilapidations
• Disrepair
• Unlawful evictions
• Disappointed beneficiaries
• Proving and challenging wills
• Rectification
• Restitution and unjust enrichment
• Housing and homelessness
• Harassment
• Franchises
• Partnerships
• Agricultural tenancies
• Sitting tenants
• Professional negligence
• Individual and corporate insolvency
• EU procurement
• Mental capacity.

Through detailed preparation and position review, Lee gets to the bones of problem solving and can get straight into no-nonsense discussions about practical routes to resolution.

Brining the benefit of 20 years of practising experience, Lee is able to understand not only the legal principles involved in a hostile dispute, but also the stresses and psychologies of those unfortunate enough to find themselves embroiled in one. That experience also means that he can assess and consider the risk exposure of each party, the consequences of failing to reach a resolution, but also understand and work with a party who thinks that trial is unavoidable.

Where one party feels particularly at risk, Lee can help level the playing field, to ensure that any negotiations are fair and not unnecessarily focused on legal viewpoints.

He speaks in plain English and is straightforward in style and language to clients from all walks of life, and to their lawyers.

Lee is the most South Westerly mediator in Britain, and his practice therefore focuses firstly from Cornwall to Bristol, but can travel wherever required and is happy to conduct mediation by Zoom if all parties agree.

Lee's particular areas of expertise are in real estate / property law, and chancery / probate work. His breadth of legal knowledge and experience comes 20 years of private practise experience and from his reported cases, leading authorities and cases of interest which include:

• Dunstan -v- Ball, High Court (Chancery Division): 2024 HHJ Berkley leading authority: As to whether a will can be proved where the attesting witness was not called at trial to give evidence of the attestation. Reliable authority for the proposition that a will can be pronounced in solemn form regardless of non-attendance of the attesting witness where there is no active challenge to the attestation from the other party. Officially reported. 
  
  
• Dallimore v Trezise, [2024] EWHC 837 (Ch), HHJ Blohm KC. Whether land used by a riding school was partnership property in the absence of accounting records and proof of source of purchase funds. Reported but not yet publicly published.
  
  
• James -v- Scudamore, High Court (Business and Property) 2023 HHJ Matthews leading authority: as to the execution of a Will and the effect of delay in equity (i.e. laches) in bringing a claim challenging its validity. First and only authority for the proposition that: ‘unjustified delay, possibly on its own…and certainly when coupled with acts amounting to waiver of the claimant's right, will bar the claim’. Officially reported. 
  
  
• McDonagh -v- Reeve, High Court (Business and Property) 2023 Joanna Smith J : As to the construction of a covenant prohibiting ‘additional building’ where an existing single building was proposed to be replaced by another, larger, single building. Officially reported. 
  
  
• Stutt -v- Neal and Others, PT-2023-BRS-000117 (2023) successful application to prove a will where there was a potential but unpursued dispute as to alternative wills and the process had indefinitely stalled. I was personal representative as well as solicitor.
  
  
• Philipott -v- Bovisand Park (2023) FTT: Successful opposition of an application to register a private right of way alleged to have been acquired by prescription. Officially reported.
  
  
• Hampton -v- Arzeen (2022) FTT: Successful claim for adverse possession where the claim was disputed because of an alleged wayleave agreement. Officially Reported. 
  
  
• Wright -v- Green, First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) 2022: As to a determination of breach of covenant under a residential long lease under s168(4) of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, i.e. forfeiture of a long residential lease. Breach was building works / alterations. Officially reported. 
  
  
• Bowyer -v- Brown and Another, PT-2022-000879, (2022): Removal of all personal representatives (one requiring service in Germany) under s50 Administration of Justice Act 1985, made at the instigation of one of them, because of insurmountable conflicts between them.
  
  
• Tattersalls Limited -v- (1) Tom George (2) Alex Elliot Mayors and City of London County Court (2021) HHJ Hellman: On the enforceability and fairness of auction conditions following the sale by auction of an uncompetitive racehorse. National media attention.
  
  
• John Stuart Condliffe -v- Old and Others, High Court (Chancery) (2021) Bristol HHJ Matthews; Probate: successfully opposing a professional executor’s claim for remuneration of more than £300,000 on an unremarkable estate worth less than that, potentially wiping out all legacies. 
  
  
• Rickard v Collins, Upper Tribunal Lands Chamber (2021): As to the discharge of a restrictive covenant under s84 of the Law of Property Act 1925. Officially reported. 
  
  
• Toms v Ruberry, Court of Appeal (2019), (second appeal) leading authority: As to the ability of a commercial landlord to serve a s146 Notice before a contractual right of re-entry had arisen. Authority for the proposition that ‘a section 146 notice can be served only after the contractual right of re-entry has become enforceable’. Officially reported. 
  
  
• Charmleaves -v- Turner-Richardson First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), 2019: As to determination of breach of covenant in a long residential lease with a view to forfeiture; the breach was use of residential premises as a holiday let. Officially reported. 
  
  
• Toms v Ruberry: High Court (2017) Dingemans J: (first appeal of County Court judgment). As to the ability of a commercial landlord to serve a s146 Notice before a contractual right of re-entry had arisen. Officially reported. 
  
  
• Perks v Perry, Court of Appeal Permission Hearing (2011) Etherton LJ:  As to the need to offer independent legal advice on a commercial lease that manifestly prejudices a guarantor.
  
  
• Charles Simpson Organisation v Redshaw [2010] 2514 (Ch), Chancery Division, Birmingham District Registry, Permission Hearing (2014) Kitchen J leading authority for the proposition that, in a Mobile Homes Act 1983 site agreement , ‘“amenity of the protected site”…simply means the quality of being agreeable or pleasant. The Court must therefore have particular regard to any decrease in the pleasantness of the site or those features of the site which are agreeable from the perspective of the particular occupier in issue.’. Cited as authority multiple times since. 
  
  
• Zissis v Lukomski, Court of Appeal (2006) leading authority: A rare appeal of an award of a Party Wall Surveyor and the authority for the correct process to be followed in bringing an appeal. Authority for the proposition that ‘Part 52 was intended to cover a form of statutory appeal like that under section 10(17) and that the provisions of Part 52 are amply sufficient to allow justice to be done on such an appeal.’ Officially reported.