SHLA London

ROLE

Katrina Robinson MBE
Co-Chair

EXPERTISE

Katrina specialises in advising on a range of housing management matters including tenancy fraud, anti-social behaviour, disrepair, and access. Highly respected within the industry, Katrina has held a number of influential roles, including founding and chairing the Tenancy Fraud Forum, founding the Disrepair Focus Group, and was the Chair of the Law Society’s LGBT+ Division and the Independent Adjudicator for Grenfell.  In 2016 she was honoured with the MBE to services to Social Housing.

ROLE

Elizabeth England
Co-Chair
Barrister at Five Paper

EXPERTISE

Elizabeth is an established property practitioner, with particular expertise in the fields of residential landlord and tenant, and social housing law.

ROLE

Andrew Atkinson
Treasurer
Freelance Solicitor

EXPERTISE

Andrew Atkinson has worked as a lawyer in local government for more than 30 years. Qualifying in-house, he has had a varied career working for London borough councils and, latterly, Home Counties’ authorities in roles centred on litigation and and all aspects of social housing law. He is a founder member of SHLA and was a member of the Law Society’s Housing Law Committee for ten years.

ROLE

Nicholas Grundy KC
Committee Member
Barrister at Five Paper

EXPERTISE

Nick is a Property, Public Law, Equality and Human Rights specialist. Nick has particular expertise in statutory interpretation. Nick is head of Five Paper’s Real Property Practice Group and a member of the Housing, Landlord and Tenant and Public Law Groups.

He regularly acts for public bodies in cases where property and public law interact: e.g. Simawi v LB Haringey & SoS CLG (intervening) [2019] EWCA Civ 1770, where he successfully argued that the rules relating to succession to council tenancies were compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

He also acts for commercial entities: e.g. he was successful in the Court of Appeal for Global 100 Limited in establishing, amongst other things, that defences to possession proceedings should, where appropriate, be determined summarily: See Global 100 Limited v Laleva [2021] EWCA Civ 1835.

Nick is recommended as a leading silk in the latest editions of Chambers UK and Legal 500. In 2020 he was short-listed by Legal 500 for Real Estate, Environment and Planning Silk of the year at the Legal 500 UK Awards.

Nick’s approach

Nick believes that as a Silk it is his role to provide effective leadership and identify the goals in achieving the best outcome for the client. Nick’s team skills were developed rowing for Cambridge in the 1987 and 1988 Boat Races; he was described by the renowned Oxford Coach, Dan Topolski as “the hardest man in either crew”. Nick has developed good leadership skills: He was Head of Chambers between 2010 and 2018. He resigned after he had achieved the reform of Chambers he regarded as essential, considering it healthy for someone else to have an opportunity to influence the direction of Five Paper.

ROLE

Elaine Marshall
Committee Member

EXPERTISE

Elaine has been involved in social housing for over 30 years as a lawyer for tenants and social landlords and more recently as a board member of two housing associations.

Elaine worked for 10 years at East Thames Group, a Registered Provider of social housing and care and support throughout East London and Essex, where she was Head of Legal. Her previous in-house role was at Family Mosaic Housing Association. Before that she was head of the housing team in a law firm which acted predominantly for a wide range of social landlords. Prior to that she had mainly represented tenants whilst working for a South London Law Centre after training and practising in private practice in areas including housing, crime, family, and immigration.

Elaine did the conversion course in law (CPE) and Law Society Finals to qualify as a Solicitor after studying modern history for her first degree at Oxford University.

She has been a member of the Social Housing Law Association (SHLA) and its committee since shortly after its inception and served as vice chair for several years. (She is currently working for the Government Legal Department on the Covid Inquiry).

ROLE

Andrew Lane
Committee Member
Barrister at Cornerstones

EXPERTISE

Andy Lane’s practice focuses on social housing, local government, and public law, and he works primarily for local authorities and housing associations.

Before coming to the Bar, Andy spent over 10 years working in the statutory and voluntary sector in the field of housing, debt, and benefits advice. He also had a spell as a local authority councillor, and held a number of portfolios during that time, including Chair of the Housing Committee. This background has meant that Andy is very approachable, comfortable in a variety of settings and able to articulate his advice and casework in a manner that is both attractive and compelling.

Though Andy has extensive experience in matters ranging from housing possession and injunction trials, homelessness appeals, housing licensing, judicial review claims and Upper Tribunal age assessment challenges through to appellate advocacy in the higher courts, clients have also increasingly instructed him to advise on policy matters, housing allocation scheme reviews, compliance with statutory duty questions, tenancy agreement revisions and the impact of and fall-out from primary and secondary legislation, and government direction.

The legal directories have consistently recognised Andy as one of the leading practitioners at the Bar in the Social Housing field by placing him in the top-ranking category:

‘He is calmness personified and his attention to detail is fantastic, as is his cross-examination.’ (Legal 500, 2024)

“Andrew Lane has always provided excellent client care and sound advice and is very easy to work with.”(Chambers & Partners, 2024)

“Andrew Lane is an exceptional, excellent barrister.” (Chambers & Partners, 2024)

“Andrew Lane is very good and a massively safe pair of hands.” (Chambers & Partners, 2024)

ROLE

Iris Ferber KC
Committee Member
Barrister at 42BR

EXPERTISE

Iris Ferber KC is a Housing and Employment Silk with 20 years’ experience in Social Housing litigation.  Her particular interest lies in disputes involving tenants with disabilities, and issues of capacity and the Equality Act – where she can deploy her extensive experience of Employment Tribunal discrimination claims.

ROLE

Imran Mustak
Committee Member
Legal Manager & In-House Solicitor Governance, Strategy and Communications, L&Q

EXPERTISE

Imran works as an in-house solicitor and legal manager at L&Q, a prominent Housing Association managing over 100,000 homes across the UK. In his role, he advises on all aspects of complex housing management matters. His recent achievements include recovering £4.5 million for fire remediation works, advising on a multi-million-pound disrepair and breach of lease claim affecting nearly 300 properties, and designing a compensation matrix for a regeneration site with an estimated compensation value of around £11 million. Additionally, Imran has successfully defended numerous EPA prosecutions and disrepair claims.

ROLE

Dambu Tenner
Committee Member
Head of Legal, Abri

EXPERTISE

Dambu is a litigator who has specialised in housing management since qualification.  She initially worked in London before going inhouse for a local authority in 2016.  In 2020, she joined Abri Group Limited (then Radian) as a Housing Solicitor. Dambu advises on all aspects of housing management, including anti-social behaviour, disrepair and general housing advice, including successions. She has an interest in the Equality Act 2010 and the role it plays in housing law.