James Hall

James Hall specialises in commercial and real estate litigation. James spent six years practising in Chambers, after a mixed common law pupillage, regularly advising and appearing in multi-track commercial and property disputes. Having then spent four years at international law firm Eversheds LLP as an employed Barrister, developing and leading a specialist team of lawyers, James rejoined Chambers in March 2011 to continue his commercial and chancery practice.

James’ time at Eversheds has given him unusual and highly beneficial access to the commercial realities of private practice in a solicitors’ firm as well as the business of the financial services sector.  Although his core skill is expert technical advice, James understands that strategic overview and costs/benefits analysis are also key to finding the best solutions for commercial disputes.

Commercial Litigation

James advises and appears in the full spectrum of commercial litigation including business-to-business contractual disputes, sale and hire of goods, insurance disputes and subrogated recoveries, and has particular expertise in professional negligence claims involving surveyors, solicitors and financial advisers.

His experience includes:

• Advising various leading residential mortgage lenders on professional negligence claims against solicitors and surveyors/valuers;
• Advising the claimant in a £250,000 professional negligence claim against a well-known financial advice company, relating to the misselling of investments linked to carbon-trading schemes;
• Advising a major household insurer in relation to a professional negligence claim against its loss adjusters, for loss of the chance to bring various subrogated recovery actions;
• Advising and appearing for a defendant firm in the TAG referral fees litigation;
• Advising the Attorney General of the Falkland Islands in relation to a conversion claim by Spanish fishermen regarding illegally caught fish;
• Appearing for the claimant agricultural feed company in an £800,000 guarantee claim involving conspiracy, wrongful interference with contract, misrepresentation and other complex issues;
• Advising the other/responding party in a construction adjudication involving disputed stage payments, alleged duress and mutual allegations of repudiatory breach of contract
• Appearing in numerous successful mediations including (whilst at Eversheds) on behalf of major residential lenders in numerous successful, high-value, often multi-party mediations in relation to professional negligence claims and also in disputes between a corporate lender and its customers; and on behalf of household insurers
• Obtaining freezing and preservation of property injunctions, both in Chambers and whilst at Eversheds, in a wide variety of circumstances where fraud is alleged

James will accept instructions on a CFA basis in appropriate cases.

Real Estate Litigation

James has throughout his career advised on and appeared in a large number of property disputes including matters relating to the enforceability of contracts for sale, boundary disputes, easements, proprietary estoppel and trusts, undue influence and co-owner/occupier disputes, landlord and tenant, relief from forfeiture, the reconstruction of conveyancing transactions, equitable subrogation, land registration issues, priority of mortgages and other interests in land, title insurance, Land Registry adjudications and Land Registry indemnity claims.

James has appeared on behalf of major residential lenders in numerous successful mediations primarily in relation to equitable subrogation and professional negligence claims arising out of conveyancing transactions; and in various claims for declaratory relief based on equitable interests in land including subrogation to the unpaid vendor’s lien and proprietary estoppel.

Other achievements

James has given and continues to give seminars to solicitors’ firms, to lenders and to household insurers on professional negligence; mortgage fraud; title rectification; charging orders and protection of priority at the Land Registry; overpayment of salaries and restitution; and insurance fraud.

He spoke on professional indemnity insurance aggregation issues at the Council of Mortgage Lenders’ Annual Fraud Conference in October 2010.

He is a substantial contributor to Lender Claims (Edited by Tomlinson QC and Grant, Sweet and Maxwell, July 2010) in relation to subjects including equitable securities over land.

James has contributed to the Journal of Professional Negligence, on lender claims against solicitors.