Christopher Stead
Call: 2008
- University of Leeds – Law (LLB) – First Class
- BPP Law School (Leeds), BVC – Outstanding (highest in year)
- Baron Dr Ver Heyden Lancey Prize (Middle Temple)
- Chancery Bar Association
- PIBA
Christopher has a young family, so much leisure time is happily spent watching them grow up. He likes regular weight training at the gym, which sometimes conflicts with a recently discovered gift of baking.
Hailing from south Wales, he has an obligatory love of rugby, and music, spending much of his youth playing the trombone in a variety of excellent ensembles; although he does not play much anymore, he still enjoys music of all sorts, and listens to it live whenever he can.
Instructing Christopher Stead
Would you like to know more?
If you require help or advice please contact our clerking team.
Call +44 (0)20 7353 0711 or email clerks@pumpcourtchambers.com.
Christopher is a busy civil practitioner with particular expertise in business, property, and probate matters, along with experience in personal injury litigation. He joined Chambers after a career break to be ordained in the Church of England and lecture in doctrine and church history. Originally, Christopher practised as a tenant in the business and property team at Kings Chambers (Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham), having undertaken pupillage with Mark Harper KC and Andrew Latimer.
Christopher can provide advice, drafting services, and advocacy, at all levels and stages of litigation, as well as assisting through ADR processes such as mediation.
Legal Services
Christopher undertakes work in a range of commercial disputes, and has had experience of many of the usual issues involved in connection with such litigation, including contractual formation and interpretation, franchise agreements and post-termination restrictive covenants, sale of goods and supply of services, banking and finance, guarantees, all in addition to aspects related to civil procedure. He has represented major companies as well as smaller traders and individuals, he has appeared at all stages of proceedings, and is able to bring a practical and commercial perspective to whatever the individual case requires.
As an example of recent experience, he has assisted leading counsel in advising on and drafted pleadings for a complex contractual dispute centring around issues of agency and authority, he has advised in a six-figure construction dispute, and has drafted pleadings for injunctions restraining breach of covenants and retention of documents.
Previously, Christopher also dealt with many aspects of personal and corporate insolvency litigation. He has acted for creditors and companies in winding-up proceedings (both in the winding up list and in contested cases), in bankruptcy petitions, and has appeared for insolvency practitioners.
Christopher has experience of various forms of property claims, both commercial and residential, and accepts instructions across the whole spectrum of property litigation. He delivered a session on recent developments in the law of nuisance at the Property team’s Autumn seminar.
In real property cases, he has acted, advised, and drafted in relation to boundary disputes, rights of way, nuisance claims, and others, and has handled complex issues of adverse possession and proprietary estoppel. He has also been instructed in TOLATA proceedings and other cases involving the establishment of interests in land.
He has advised and acted for landlords in residential possession proceedings (including as against trespassers), and for landlords in commercial leasehold claims, including renewal of business tenancy, as well as forfeiture claims in long leasehold disputes. He has advised on leasehold enfranchisement, and has appeared successfully in service charge proceedings. He has appeared in proceedings in the First Tier Property tribunal, and has been instructed in a number dilapidations/disrepair claims, both on behalf of landlords and tenants.
Christopher accepts instructions in all matters relating to personal injury. He has extensive experience of credit hire claims, and successfully deploys arguments for both claimants and defendants in such cases, including the dismissal of a claim on the basis of need, and resisting reductions in the period of hire.
He regularly appears in liability trials, and has successfully opposed applications for findings of fundamental dishonesty in road traffic accident claims. He has appeared in occupier’s liability proceedings, he has advised on claims involving strict liability, and has been involved in industrial disease work. He is willing to take instructions for both Claimants and Defendants at all levels of personal injury litigation.
Christopher represents clients in interim applications in personal injury cases, including strike out, relief from sanctions, directions and allocation hearings, stage three MOJ portal hearings, and others.
Christopher regularly receives instructions in probate and inheritance matters, an area of practice which has significantly developed following his third-six under the supervision of Tara Lyons. He has advised on a number of different issues relating to the administration of estates and distribution, as well as acting on behalf of parties in contested probate cases and in claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975.
He has recently been involved in several cases (and some are ongoing) in which the validity of wills face challenge on grounds of capacity, want of knowledge and approval, undue influence, and fraudulent calumny. Christopher can assist from the very early stages in finding the most effective way of pursuing or defending a claim against an estate.
He is able to provide advice, draft pleadings, and appear as an advocate in contentious probate and family provision proceedings, as well as advise on procedural matters and strategy in achieving the best outcome for his clients.
- University of Leeds – Law (LLB) – First Class
- BPP Law School (Leeds), BVC – Outstanding (highest in year)
- Baron Dr Ver Heyden Lancey Prize (Middle Temple)
- Chancery Bar Association
- PIBA
Christopher has a young family, so much leisure time is happily spent watching them grow up. He likes regular weight training at the gym, which sometimes conflicts with a recently discovered gift of baking.
Hailing from south Wales, he has an obligatory love of rugby, and music, spending much of his youth playing the trombone in a variety of excellent ensembles; although he does not play much anymore, he still enjoys music of all sorts, and listens to it live whenever he can.
Instructing Christopher Stead
Would you like to know more?
If you require help or advice please contact our clerking team.
Call +44 (0)20 7353 0711 or email clerks@pumpcourtchambers.com.
