Bryan Johnston

Bryan is a property litigation partner and Real Estate Practice Group Leader in a global law firm.

He is responsible as Practice Leader for transactional real estate across the UK as well as Planning and Property Litigation. Bryan is integral to Dentons Development group which contains expertise crossing all aspects of complex urban development including transaction structuring, planning, environment, construction, development, occupation, finance and contentious/advisory issues.

From a day-to-day practice perspective, Bryan works alongside developers, commercial and residential landowners, landlords, tenants, insolvency practitioners and government and other public bodies. He deals with all aspects of property litigation and liaises extensively with colleagues across the firm, including in transactional real estate, construction, insolvency, corporate and finance in order to ensure that real estate litigation is an integral part of the wide Dentons client offering. Bryan is a “go-to” person in respect of all contentious and advisory real estate issues.

Bryan has considerable expertise in dealing with complex rights of light issues and has devised mitigation strategies for important development sites. He has delivered one of the prestigious Blundell Lectures on the focussing on unresolved issues in rights to light. He also advises on the construction of documents (in particular, development agreements) and provides both strategic advice and updates on developments in the law in a contentious and non-contentious context for industry and clients.

Bryan is experienced in dealing with all other unique aspects of real estate litigation, including the Landlord & Tenant Act 1954, tenant default, party walls, easement and covenant disputes, neighbourly disputes (including development noise and disturbance issues), service charge disputes, dilapidations disputes, professional negligence in the property context (including legal and surveying professional negligence, negligence and nuisance).

He has written numerous articles and has given various talks to industry bodies (e.g. RICS, the Property Bar Association, the Property Managers’ Association and the British Property Federation), as well as clients and general counsel. Bryan has delivered many internal and external seminars and regularly contributes articles for the professional press.

Bryan is a past chair of the Property Litigation Association (PLA), having served various committees of the industry body for real estate litigation for many years, including the Law Reform Committee and the Executive Committee. Bryan was an extremely active chair of the PLA and overhauled its financial and administrative functions, as well as overseeing strong growth in the Association and diversification of its activities and classes of membership.

As well as being a highly respected property litigator, Bryan is a trusted real estate advisor to the firm and its clients.