Expired Faculty Forum Webinar with Victoria Woolf & Howard Smith – 13th May 2026 (virtual)

The Faculty has organised a Forum Webinar which will be presented to you by ZOOM on Wednesday 13th May 2026 at 4.00 p.m. until 5.30 p.m.

Victoria Woolf & Howard Smith will be delivering on the following:

•  A Wall of Impartiality: Recusal in Party Wall Appeals’

Victoria Woolf of Shoosmiths and Howard Smith of Radcliffe Chambers will be discussing one of their recent cases in which their opponent applied for the recusal of His Honour Judge Parfitt from hearing a party wall appeal. The application failed in the first instance; the High Court went on to grant the applicant permission to appeal the decision; and the parties ultimately settled the dispute.  The issues considered by the court in the first instance decision are important, particularly in circumstance where it is often one judge that hears all party wall appeals.

Victoria is an Legal Director in Shoosmiths’s real estate disputes team in London. She acts for a variety of clients in the Real Estate & Infrastructure sector, specialising in neighbourly matter disputes arising out of property developments. Victoria has a particular expertise in advising on Party Wall Act issues. She regularly acts for both property developers and building occupiers in party wall related disputes, and she has extensive experience of the Party Wall Act process. She is also on the legal panel for Party Wall Mediation Scheme LLP and sits on the Pyramus & Thisbe London Committee. In addition, Victoria advises property developers on rights to light and access matters affecting developments. She also undertakes residential and commercial licensing work, advising both landlords and tenants on issues relating to licenses for consent and licenses for access.

Howard Smith is a chancery barrister at Radcliffe Chambers, Lincoln’s Inn. He is highly experienced in the field of party walls and has appeared in many of the familiar party wall cases. He has been the barrister member of the working group responsible for the RICS Party Walls guidance note/practice standard and the RICS Rights of Light guidance note over various editions, and he sits in the High Court as a deputy Chancery Master.

1.5 Hours CPD

CPD certificates will be issued after the event. Please be aware that if you do not join within the first 30 minutes, you will not receive a CPD certificate. We cannot be responsible for anyone that does not attend the zoom meeting and please note that we will not provide video recordings of events that are missed.

Once booked, we will send you the link a day prior to the webinar via email to access the meeting, therefore please make sure that you fill in the contact details correctly on the booking form. For bookings of more than one person, can you please fill in the individual contact details for each person so that we can send the link to both parties.

*Booking expires on the 12th May 2026*

Please note that forums are non-refundable and non-transferable if you decide not to attend.

We look forward to seeing you.