Sara Stephens

Partner

Sara Stephens

Partner

Email Sara

+44 (0)20 7753 7501

London

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Sectors

Sara is a partner in the real estate litigation team, and a specialist in UK living real estate. She works closely with institutional landlords, investment funds and housing providers on a wide range of issues, including building safety advice, block and estate management and service charge disputes.

In addition to block and estate management, Sara specialises in a wide range of property disputes including forfeiture, party wall disputes, boundary disputes, possession and nuisance claims, disrepair and complex multi-party claims. She is a member of Penningtons Manches Cooper’s building safety group, working collaboratively with other teams in the real estate division on building safety advice and disputes

I enjoy working with a variety of clients in the UK living sector on complex landlord and tenant disputes and building safety issues. I provide comprehensive advice to achieve the best results for my clients, ensuring commercial realities are taken into account.

Sara Stephens, Partner

Sara is a former member of the Law Society’s housing law committee, which she co-chaired for three years. She is a former executive committee member of the Housing Law Practitioners Association and is a current member of the Property Litigation Association. Her articles have appeared in various industry journals, including RICS Property Journal, Journal of Housing Law, Solicitors Journal and Legal Action Magazine. Sara has also provided training for CLT and the Housing Law Practitioners Association, together with seminars and bespoke training sessions for clients and other property professionals.

Sara has been recognised by The Legal 500 as ‘a stand out lawyer with excellent knowledge base’. Chambers UK ranks Sara in Band 4 as ‘super bright and very good with clients.  She is extremely good at getting the right results’.

Recent work highlights

Enforcement notices

Representing an institutional landlord on a series of enforcement notices served pursuant to the Housing Act 2004, including several improvement notices requiring appeal.

Building Safety Act

Advising an institutional landlord in respect of recoverability of costs via service charge relating to fire safety defects and implementation of the ‘gold thread’ of information under the Building Safety Act.

Principal accounting person

Responding to an application to the First-tier Tribunal to register a client as the principal accountable person (PAP) where the applicant had failed to identify the correct PAP and, following our representations, agreed to withdraw their application.

External recognition
Rankings from respected legal directories reflect the reputation our lawyers have earned across their key sectors and areas of practice.

What people are saying

Sara has excellent knowledge and provides considered and thorough responses.

Chambers UK

Super bright and very good with clients. She is extremely good at getting the right results.

Chambers UK

A stand out lawyer with excellent knowledge base.

Legal 500

Sara is very responsive and extremely professional.

Chambers UK

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