James Andrews-Tipler

Notable Cases

The Republic of Mozambique v Privinest Shipbuilding SAL (Holding) & Ors (CA-2025-000101) – James was instructed (led by Ciaran Keller KC) to assist with an application to the Court of Appeal concerning the conditions applicable to the grant of permission to appeal to the Appellants and whether the offered security of a charge over a 75% beneficial interest in a Belgravia property said to be valued at c.£18 million properly met those conditions (having regard to the limited nature of the interest and the practicalities of obtaining an order for sale to realise the security if needed. Decision outstanding.

The Kingdom Hall Trust v Davies [2025] UKUT 294 (LC) – This important decision concerns the ability to acquire easements by prescription over land held by charities, religious institutions and other bodies whose powers to dispose of land are limited - including principally whether the Upper Tribunal was correct to hold that rights can be acquired by prescription over land held by bodies who do not have power to grant easements by simply presuming a grant by predecessor in title who did have such powers, even if such a grant pre-dates entirely the prescriptive use relied upon. James appeared alone for the appellant charity in the Upper Tribunal and has secured permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal against its decision.

Vodafone Limited v Gravesham Borough Council (K00BS429) (Recorder Gard, County Court at Canterbury) (6 November 2025) – James appeared for the tenant in this contested lease renewal which raised important questions as to the interaction between the Building Safety Act 2022 and the Electronic Communications Code, and the extent to which the landlord should under the terms of the new lease have control and oversight over the tenant’s construction and management of its rooftop site on a higher-risk building. The Court ultimately favoured the tenant’s position on most of the key terms in dispute.

Covent Garden IP Ltd v Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure Ltd Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) [2025] UKUT 136 (LC) – James appeared for the successful operator (led by Oliver Radley-Gardner KC) in this appeal concerning proper appellate procedure and consideration for an MSV agreement.

EE Limited v Hutchison 3G UK Limited v AP Wireless II (UK) Ltd [2025] 4 WLUK 719 (“Equipoint”) – James appeared for the successful operators (led by Graham Read KC) on this preliminary issues hearing concerning whether to imply a tenancy at will or a periodic tenancy following holdover at a telecommunications site, and the consequences of that result for access to Part 4 of the Code further to the Supreme Court’s decision in Compton Beauchamp. James also appeared for the operators in APW’s appeal to the Upper Tribunal (judgment outstanding).

Hulley Enterprises Ltd & Others v The Russian Federation [2024] EWHC 1769 (Comm) – James was briefed as junior counsel (led by David Peters KC) to provide specialist advice in connection with the obtaining of a charging order over land owned by the Russian Federation in West London to secure payment of debts owed in connection with the enforcement of arbitration awards totalling nearly US$60 billion.

Quinn & 190 Others v Friesian Developments Limited PT-2022-000625 – James was briefed as junior counsel (led by Gary Cowen KC) for the Defendant purchaser in a claim brought by 191 Claimants each seeking to establish long-term rights in respect of dwellings within a substantial chalet park in the West Midlands by virtue of (inter alia) proprietary estoppel and/or an alleged grant of perpetually renewable leases. The matter was set down for a three-week trial listed for summer 2025 but ultimately settled out of court.

Vodafone Ltd v Potting Shed Bar and Gardens Ltd (formerly Gencomp (No.7) Ltd) [2023] EWCA Civ 825 James appeared in the Court of Appeal for the respondent Vodafone (lead by Graham Read KC) in this important appeal considering the interaction of landlord and tenant principles with the Electronic Communications Code, and in particular, whether a concurrent lessee is to be treated as a party to an existing Code agreement for the purposes of the Code.

Odukoya v Topaz Finance Ltd (t/a Malanite Mortgages) [2023] EWHC 441 (Ch) James secured the making of an extended civil restraint order against a litigant who had made repeated unmeritorious applications seeking to impugn a mortgage and prevent recovery of possession by the lender and realisation of its considerable security.

Oceanfill Ltd v Nuffield Health & Cannons Group Ltd [2022] EWHC 2178 (Ch) James appeared as sole counsel for the defendants (against Stephen Jourdan KC and Imogen Dodds) in this application to the High Court considering a claim against guarantors of Virgin Active’s liabilities under an assigned lease following the well-publicised entry of the Virgin Active companies into a novel s.26A Companies Act 2006 “cross-class cramdown” restructuring plan and their resultant release from liability to pay the rents on certain of their gym premises. James argued that the true effect of the plan and/or the terms of the relevant guarantee meant that the guarantor defendants had been released from liability to a like extent. Deputy Master Arkush found for the claimants but granted permission to appeal, noting the case raises novel issues of wider importance (appeal later compromised).

CTIL v Compton Beauchamp Estates Ltd; CTIL v Ashloch & AP Wireless II (UK) Ltd; On Tower UK Ltd v AP Wireless II (UK) Ltd [2022] UKSC 18; [2022] 1 W.L.R. 3360 (Supreme Court) James appeared as junior counsel for CTIL (led by John McGhee KC and Oliver Radley-Gardner KC) in two of the three conjoined appeals leading to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision which substantially endorsed CTIL’s arguments and reversed the “wrong turn” taken by the Court of Appeal in Compton Beauchamp, confirming that an operator in occupation of land is not thereby precluded from obtaining new Code rights over that land under Part 4 of the Code.

Goodenough College v Nuffield Health Wellbeing Ltd (H65YX924) (17 May 2022) James successfully resisted an application for summary judgment by a landlord for substantial arrears of rent accruing during the defendant’s forced closure as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown, arguing that a stay should be granted instead to allow time to explore arbitration under the Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Act 2022 and to await clarification on the law in a forthcoming judgment of the Court of Appeal.

EE Ltd & H3G UK Ltd v Stephenson & AP Wireless II (UK) Ltd [2021] UKUT 167 (LC); [2021] 4 W.L.R. 116. James appeared for the successful operators (led by Graham Read KC) in this important judgment on the scope of Part 5 of the Code, confirming the Tribunal’s jurisdiction to make orders for termination and replacement of code agreements (particularly older “subsisting” agreements) without the need for the operator to aver a site-specific need for such an order. The Tribunal also provided important guidance that the presumption against changes to terms of agreements on renewal established by the House of Lords in O’May v City of London Real Property Co Ltd [1983] 2 A.C. 736 should not, in contrast to the position governing s.35 of the 1954 Act, apply in respect of Part 5 renewals under the Code.

Reay & Reay v Taylor v Taylor REF/2019/0903 (21 Sept 2021) James appeared for the successful claimants in this trial before Judge Jackson in the FTT (Property Chamber) (Land Registration) of their opposed application for a determination of the boundary between their and the defendants’ property pursuant to s.60 LRA 2002, and successfully resisted a late application for rectification of the operative conveyance.

EE Ltd & H3G UK Ltd v Hackney LBC [2021] UKUT 142 (LC). James appeared alone for the successful claimant operators in this dispute over the terms of an access to survey agreement sought by the operators against the respondent landowner council. Martin Rodger KC (Deputy Chamber President) accepted James’s submissions that his earlier dictum in EE Ltd & H3G UK Ltd v Islington LBC (No. 1) [2018] UKUT 0361 at [48] that the terms of an agreement imposing interim Code rights should “put the full risk of the operation on which the operator wishes to embark on the operator and none of the risk on the site provider”, and the requirement in para 23(5) of the Code to include the terms appropriate to minimise loss and damage caused by the exercise of Code rights to relevant persons – did not require the inclusion of a term in the agreement sought that would have obliged the operators to give a wide-ranging indemnity against all liabilities, costs, expenses, damages and losses arising out of or in connection with the agreement.

Bermondsey Exchange Freeholders Limited v Kevin Conway (County Court at Lambeth, November 2016), in which James successfully represented the claimant landlord in a claim for an injunction to prevent a tenant from letting his flat to short-stay guests via Airbnb and similar web services. Upheld on appeal [2018] 4 WLUK 619, HHJ Luba KC.

Vanquish Properties (UK) Limited Partnership v Brook Street (UK) Limited [2016] EWHC 1508 (Ch); [2016] L & TR 33 in which James advised and appeared for the successful defendant tenant in a break clause dispute concerning a significant proposed development in the City of London (led by Guy Fetherstonhaugh KC).

Education, Awards and Qualifications

MA Law (First Class) – Christ’s College, University of Cambridge (2012)
Diploma in French Legal Studies – Université de Poitiers (ERASMUS Scheme) (2011)
BPTC – Kaplan Law School, London (2013)
Called to the Bar 2013, Inner Temple
Major Exhibition Award (BPTC Scholarship): Inner Temple
De Hart Prize: Christ’s College, University of Cambridge
James is a member of the Chancery Bar Association and the Property Bar Association.
Languages: French, Swedish (Conversational)
James is a classically-trained pianist and cellist.

Publications

James writes and speaks regularly on current legal issues, and has assisted with the preparation of recent Blundell lectures on topical issues in property law including Lady Justice (as she then was) Carr’s 2022 lecture on professional negligence “The Supreme Court on SAAMCO: has it reached the summit?”

Further highlights include:

Navigating the Lease Renewals Pilot N.L.J. 2018, 168(7786), 13-14 (with Caroline Shea KC)
Game of Drones (Bill of Middlesex, Spring 2017 p.14) (with Ciara Fairley)
Charging Orders on Land, S.J. 2017 161(15) 27 (with Stephanie Tozer KC)
Implied terms: from "characteristically inspired discussion" to authoritative guidance (Case comment) L. & T. Review 2016, 20(1), 4-12 (with Toby Boncey)
Under Occupation 165 NLJ 7675 (with Joseph Ollech).

Called 2013