The image shows a man with glasses, wearing a gray suit and patterned tie, smiling at the camera.

Richard Oughton

Year of Call: 1978
Practice areas:
  • Business and Property
Just a quick e-mail to thank you for your assistance and help with regards our appeal hearing. Mr Oughton and your chambers did a sterling job and we won the appeal, please pass on my gratitude to Mr Oughton."
I thought yesterdays meeting was positive and we were very impressed with Mr Oughton. He seemed to have understood our problems and gave advice in a clear and simple way."
Richard has a complete mastery of his subject which enables him to provide consistently reliable advice. When it comes to advocacy, he clearly enjoys the respect of the judges before whom he appears, and with good reason.”

Legal 500, 2025

Richard Oughton is excellent.”

Chambers and Partners - UK Bar, 2025


Overview

Richard Oughton is Head of the Business and Property Department.

He took a double first in law at St John's College, Cambridge, before obtaining a Master of Laws degree at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

He has extensive experience in all aspects of general chancery and commercial work with a particular emphasis on wills, trusts, succession and related areas of taxation, mortgages and secured lending, landlord and tenant (commercial and private sector-residential).


Expertise

  • Chancery Law

  • Commercial Litigation

  • Wills

  • Trusts

  • Taxation

  • Mortgages and secured lending

  • Landlord and Tenant

Notable Cases

Preston and Henderson v St Helens MBC (1989) 58 P & CR 500 (proprietary estoppel and compulsory purchase-Lands Tribunal)

Lloyds Bank v Byrne [1991] 23 HLR 472 (sale of matrimonial home at the request of proprietor of charging order of one share only)

Wayling v Jones (1995) 69 P & CR 170 (proprietary estoppel and family provision)

Jyske Bank v Spjeldnaes (1996-7) (banking/fraud/tracing)

British Railways Board v Smith (1997) (first Queen’s Bench Master’s Appointment by Video link)

Sprung v Royal Insurance (first instance unreported) inability of insured to recover damages from an insurer for late payment of insurance monies. This case led to a Law Commission Report and was partially reversed by legislation.

Re Levy Estate Trust [2000] CLY 5263 (ability of trustees to act upon the footing that an elderly woman will not adopt a child)

Lomax v Wood [2001] EWCA Civ. 1099 (easements-right of way)

Malory Enterprises Ltd v Cheshire Homes Ltd [2002] Ch 216 (land registration-fraud/rectification/overriding interests). The House of Lords granted the Defendant leave to appeal- [2002] 1 WLR 3016 and the case was compromised two and a half weeks before the hearing of the Appeal upon the basis that the Land Registry paid both the Claimant and the Defendant a substantial Indemnity (including an Indemnity as to costs)

Cook v J.D. Wetherspoon Ltd [2006] EWCA Civ. 330 (construction of Transfer as to boundary)

Walker v Walker [2007] EWHC 597 (Ch); [2010] W & TLR 1617 (contested removal of trustee)

Re Tillotson, Re 2 Middleton Drive [2008] EW Lands LP 56/2006 (successful opposition to application in Lands Tribunal to relax restrictive covenant to allow second house on plot in high class residential area)

Land at Cae Hir [2008] EW Lands LP 55/2006 (successful opposition to application in Lands Tribunal to remove restrictive covenant to allow housing development on field offering outstanding view)

Musson v Bonner [2010] W & TLR 1369 (beneficial ownership of joint bank account)

Matila Ltd v Lisheen Ltd [2010] EWHC (Ch) 1832 (sale of flats in a new development, purchaser failing to complete, judgment for over £2M obtained against purchaser and guarantors)

Re Holy Trinity Platt (2012) 14 Ecclesiastical Law Society Journal 463 (re-ordering/removal of pews)

Vaughan-Jones v Vaughan-Jones [2015] EWHC 1086 (Ch); [2015] W & TLR 1287 (rectification of Deed of Variation)

Lenderink-Woods v Zurich Assurance [2015] 3634 (Ch) (negligence in selling insurance products in relation to Inheritance Tax planning-Defendant’s application for summary judgment dismissed)

Lloyd v Jones [2016] EWHC 1308 (Ch) (Contentious Probate-Want of Capacity and Want of Knowledge and Approval)

Lenderink-Woods v Zurich Assurance [2016] 3287 (Ch) (negligence in selling insurance products in relation to Inheritance Tax planning-judgment at trial for Claimant)

Dhaliwal v Hussain and Bachada [2017] EWHC 2655 (Ch) (Misrepresentation upon a sale of a dental practice)

Venuscare Ltd v Cumbria [2019] EWHC 3268 (Admin) (Appeal against the making of a Traffic Management Order)

Venuscare Ltd v Burge Halston Ltd REF/2019/0113 First Tier Tribunal (Land Registration) (Construction of a conveyance and application of horizontal (or “angel cake”) division of ownership)

Rock Ferry Waterfront Trust v Pennistone Holdings Ltd [2020] EWHC 3007 (Ch) (Proprietary estoppel, Land Charges Act, equitable notice and actual occupation for land registration); affirmed [2021] EWCA Civ. 1029; [2022] 2 P & CR 14 (affirmed on the issue of actual occupation-Malory v Cheshire not followed on this point).

Scott v Martin (Land Registration-Boundary Dispute) [2021] UKUT 31 (LC)

Handrikman v Heslam [2021] UKUT 56 (LC) (Adverse possession)

Crook v Zurich Assurance REF/2019/1066 First Tier Tribunal (Land Registration) (Important case on resolving uncertainty as to the time when reasonable belief as to ownership was relevant in claiming adverse possession of registered land) 

Dixon v Crown Estates [2022] EWHC 3256 (Ch); [2023] 2 BCLC 205 ( Use of proprietary estoppel to obtain a vesting order where a company had been dissolved and land had passed to the Crown Estate by way of escheat) 

Goulden v Milne [2024] EW Misc 1 (CC) (Claim under Part 1 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987. Held that notices under s3 and s3A  Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 could not be served prior to completion) 

Achievements

Memberships

  • Northern Ireland Bar

  • Society of Trusts and Estate Practitioners

  • Association of Contentious Trust and Probate Specialists

  • Chancery Bar Association

  • Northern Business and Property Bar Association (Secretary of Northern Chancery Bar Association 1995-7)

Publications

  • Author, Second and Third Editions Tyler's Family Provision

  • Assistant Editor, Tenth Edition and Supplement Fisher and Lightwood's Law of Mortgage


News & Insights


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