Clare Hartley

DAC Beachcroft

The commercial property industry has faced the brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic but property litigator Clare Hartley has been shining. She secured the first High Court summary judgment decision relating to retailer Covid rent arrears.

This landmark case, Commerz Real Investmentgesellschaft v TFS Stores, confirmed that, despite various statutory restrictions, retail landlords have a viable recovery tool for clawing back outstanding rent that may have accrued throughout the pandemic.

Following this, she has been leading a large commercial rent arrears debt recovery and distressed tenant management project which, with over 500 instructions, has recovered multimillion-pound debts related to Covid-accumulated arrears for DAC Beachcroft’s landlord clients.

Hartley will be busy this year dealing with arbitration referrals in respect of rent arrears because of Covid-19 that will be covered by the Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill once it becomes law in March.

Before the end of the Parliamentary session there is an expected modification to the telecoms code, which means there will be a large resetting of that market, which in turn means Hartley can expect to be serving lots of notices and spend plenty of time in the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber).