Suzanne Lloyd Holt

I'm responsible for leading the Birmingham property litigation team. We advise on the full range of contentious property matters, including landlord and tenant disputes, property-related insolvency, professional negligence, joint venture disputes, agreements and issues affecting development sites.

Tel: +44 (0)121 214 1046

Email: suzanne_lloyd_holt@wragge.com

Best brains in ...

Winning cases (see Court of Appeal victory for Westbury Homes), drafting documents and having a wise head!

Highlight of your career so far?

I've been a property litigator for 30 years and have been fortunate enough to enjoy lots of highlights. However, my favourite highlight is our win for Westbury Homes in the case Rennie v Westbury Homes.

The case centred on the extension of an option period. Rennie claimed that Westbury had not served a notice sufficient to extend an option. Both the High Court and the Court of Appeal found for Westbury Homes and held that the option had been validly extended.

It was difficult law, we started on the back foot and it was a commercially important case for our clients. All in all, a complete rollercoaster!

Most challenging job you've ever done?

This would be the Court of Appeal victory in 2006 for the Financial Times in a landmark property case. It was difficult law, the stakes were high and our client was in the public eye.

In Fitzroy House Epworth Street (No 1) Limited v The Financial Time Limited, the dispute centred on whether The FT had successfully broken its lease of Castle House. If the FT had lost, it would have cost at least £5 million. It was a great day for us when the Court of Appeal ruled unanimously in the FT's favour.

What about outside the UK?

I head up the firm's Italy Desk so frequently work with our good friends and client contacts throughout Italy.

Of all the international jobs I've worked on, the most satisfying happens to be a very small one which was extremely important and time critical to our client British Airways. Following the EU directive for all European airlines on passenger entitlement in the event of a plane delay, we were asked to provide a translated version in Italian which, while correctly explaining the directive, also complied fully with Italian law. Working with NCTM in Milan, we were able to turn this job around with great speed and that's exactly what the client needed.

What's your definition of going the extra mile... And when have you done it?

What might be regarded as the 'extra mile' is just part of what we do. We have to be available at all hours of the day and night. I remember one particular Friday, it was a Friday before a Bank Holiday, when the phone rang at 5 pm and a client needed an injunction to be served. It's not a drama. We just get on with it! In that case it was a commercial tenant who had been locked out of his restaurant premises. We managed to 'browbeat' the landlord into submission and our client was given access to his restaurant at 10 pm that night.

And a holiday would not be a normal holiday unless I'd spent some of it drafting documents!

Best example of a creative legal solution?

I was advising one of our bank clients on a situation involving an ATM machine situated in a lobby area that could be accessed by the bank's customers using their cards. Unfortunately, a nearby tramp saw its potential as somewhere warm and dry and where he could stay overnight! He started to sneak in when an unwitting customer opened the door and within days he had set up 'home' in there every night. However, sleeping became the least of our problems when he started to use it for other things including his toilet habits! Several top level meetings later and forever mindful of its public image, the head of legal asked me to explore all and every option in my legal arsenal to remove the tramp. Could we get an injunction? Could we use the Squatters' procedure? I thought for a nano-second and suggested they moved the ATM machine outside... which is what they did!

When have you ever given a client a real competitive edge?

Winning for Westbury Homes in the Court of Appeal meant they could buy the disputed land at 50% of the market value. That gave Westbury a significant competitive advantage.

I'm also a huge supporter of seconding junior lawyers into our clients. It really helps our lawyers to understand their clients' business and encourages them to think about their work in a commercial context.

What's your single greatest contribution to Wragge & Co's corporate responsibility?

There are always plenty of pro-bono requests for property litigation and I'm always happy to be able to help. For many years now I've worked with local law centres helping their clients with common lease problems.

What's been written or said about you that you're most proud of?

After a negotiation session when I managed, against all odds, to win back some costs from the other side, my client turned round to me and said 'Suzanne, I would never like to play poker with you'! That's a great compliment to a litigator!