John Clargo

Date of Call 1994

 

 

RANGE OF EXPERIENCE          

For the last 10 years John’s practice has focused on advocacy and advisory work encompassing all areas of landlord and tenant law and related areas of real property law.  He also accepts instructions dealing with property-related professional negligence. 

His residential L&T clients are almost exclusively landlords whereas his commercial L&T clients are both landlords and tenants.  He has very wide experience of dealing with cases involving the construction, assignment, termination and renewal of leases, enfranchisement and the enforcement of covenants.  He has frequently dealt with housing cases (including homelessness) and cases involving non-tenant occupiers of land (licensees and squatters). 

In real property John regularly deals with easements, restrictive covenants, conveyancing and registration issues, boundaries, adverse possession, mortgages (including LPA receiverships), trusts (including cohabitant TOLATA cases), options and overage agreements. 

John has appeared in the County Court, the Court of Appeal, the House of Lords, the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal, the Land Registry and the Lands Tribunal. 

The balance of John’s practice is general civil litigation for individuals and companies, particularly contractual matters.  In the course of his career he has dealt with cases relating to the sale of goods, the supply of services, the international carriage of goods by road, the conflict of laws, soft intellectual property, libel, civil fraud, commercial and personal insolvency, Inheritance Act claims, employment law as well as general contract and (non-personal injury/clinical negligence) tort law.

QUALIFICATIONS

1994   Called to the Bar – Middle Temple

1994   Inns of Court School of Law – Bar Vocational Course – Very Competent

1993   University of Huddersfield – Common Professional Examination/Post-Graduate Certificate in Law – Merit

1990   University of Strathclyde – Post-Graduate Certificate in Russian

1989   St Peter’s College, Oxford – BA (Hons) English & Modern Languages – 2(i)

 

CAREER PATH

After graduating from Oxford John worked as a fast-stream management trainee in a department of the civil service specialising in areas relating to defence and foreign affairs until leaving to pursue a career at the bar. 

John was a pupil at 8 New Square and Hardwicke Building and was offered a tenancy on completion of his pupillage at the latter set in October 1995.  In March 1998 he moved to 3 Paper Buildings.  He joined 13 KBW in August 2007. 

John joined the editorial panel of Current Law Week in 1996 and in 1998 was appointed to the Attorney General’s Provincial Panel of Civil Litigation Counsel.  Since 2006 he has been an authorized pupil supervisor.

 

CASES

• Secretary of State for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs v Meier [2008] EWCA Civ 903; [2009] 1 W.L.R. 828; [2009] 1 All E.R. 614; [2009] H.L.R. 16 (Real property; Trespass to land;
  Injunctions; Ministerial guidance; Possession orders; Travellers) (CA) (decision of House of Lords on appeal (heard June 2009) currently awaited)
• Swanston Grange (Luton) Management Ltd v Langley-Essen [2008] L. & T.R. 20 (Landlord and tenant; Breach; Covenants; Estoppel; Jurisdiction;  Leasehold valuation tribunals; Underleases; Waiver) (Lands Tribunal) 
• Popely v Heltfield Properties Ltd [2005] EWHC 368 (Real property; beneficial ownership; evidential burden; resulting trusts; sale of land)
• St Ermin’s Property Co. Ltd. v Draper [2004] EWHC 697 (Setting aside judgment; failure to attend trial; absence of medical certificate)
• Hayling v Harper [2003] 39 EG 117, [2004] 1 P&CR 563, [2003] 3 E.G.L.R. 5 (CA) (Easements; prescriptive acquisition) (CA)
• Courtney Lodge Management Ltd v Blake [2004] EWCA Civ 975, [2005] 1 P. & C.R. 17, [2005] L. & T.R. 2, Times 15^th July 2004 (Forfeiture of leases; difference of meaning between ‘permit’ and ‘suffer’) (CA)
• Twinsectra Ltd v Yardley & Ors [1999] Lloyd's Rep 438 (Trusts; breach of trusts; knowing receipt; knowing assistance; dishonesty) (CA)
• Murthy & Anor  v Sivajothi & Ors [1999] 1 WLR 467 (Conflict of laws; enforcement of foreign judgments) (CA)

                                                           

 

INTERESTS                         

Languages: German, French and Russian