3PB

Property and estates, Public and administrative law

Joshua believes that everyone should have access to robust representation and realistic, honest advice. He tries to offer all his clients straightforward and cost-effective solutions to their problems. If the only option is litigation, he aims to secure them the best outcome he can, tailored to their circumstances and their means.

Joshua is a specialist whose goal is to guide his clients through the maze of English property law while avoiding its frequently unexpected hazards. His practice includes familiar property work, such as neighbour disputes (boundaries, nuisance, rights of way), and the full range of residential and commercial landlord & tenant matters. He also accepts instructions in property law more broadly, such as applications under TOLATA 1996, mortgages, commons and agricultural tenancies. He has significant experience of social housing issues, including anti-social behaviour, homelessness and allocations.

Joshua’s practice also includes public and regulatory law disputes, from local authority prosecutions through professional disciplinary proceedings to age disputes brought by unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors.

Joshua provides advocacy and advice on litigation in the High Court and County Court, as well as the First-Tier and Upper Tribunals, and at inquiries.

Joshua lectured part-time in Public Law at BPP in 2006 and 2007.
Joshua Dubin is an employee of Joshua Dubin Limited, a limited company authorised by the Bar Standards Board to provide legal services (BSB entity number 187592). Joshua Dubin Limited has a contractual arrangement with 3PB Barristers to provide clerking and administrative services including billing and complaints handling.
Property and estates

Joshua believes that everyone should have access to robust representation and realistic, honest advice. He tries to offer all his clients straightforward and cost-effective solutions to their problems. If the only option is litigation, he aims to secure them the best outcome he can, tailored to their circumstances and their means.

Joshua is a specialist whose goal is to guide his clients through the maze of English property law while avoiding its frequently unexpected hazards. His practice includes familiar property work, such as neighbour disputes (boundaries, nuisance, rights of way), and the full range of residential and commercial landlord & tenant matters. He also accepts instructions in property law more broadly, such as applications under TOLATA 1996, mortgages, commons and agricultural tenancies. He has significant experience of social housing issues, including anti-social behaviour, homelessness and allocations.

Joshua provides advocacy and advice on litigation in the High Court and County Court, as well as the First-Tier and Upper Tribunals, and at inquiries.

Joshua is regularly instructed in real property matters and neighbour disputes, including:

• Nuisance
• Trespass
• Boundary & easement disputes
• Party Wall etc Act 1996 matters
• Mortgages
• Charges, charging orders & orders for sale
• LPA Receiver matters
• Equitable interests (eg applications under the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996)
• Agricultural tenancies.

Joshua has represented clients in the Court of Appeal and before the Adjudicator to HM Land Registry, as well as the County Court, High Court, First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) and Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber). He has experience of a variety of other property-related matters, from planning breach injunctions to parking enforcement.

Joshua has lectured to solicitors and not-for-profit organisations on all aspects of housing, landlord & tenant and property law. He is happy to provide in-house lectures tailored to clients’ needs. He has spoken at the annual Housing Law Conference (HLPA/Law Society) and is a member of several specialist associations for property practitioners.

Public and administrative law

People can find themselves in conflict with public bodies at any time, whether it’s their local authority, their professional body or a national regulator. Joshua represents individuals to give them an effective voice in challenging the state, and represents public authorities to ensure that a fair balance is struck between the needs of everyone in society.

Joshua has particular expertise in social housing and age disputes. His experience encompasses homelessness and allocations, through human rights and disability discrimination, to community care and particularly age assessment disputes between unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors and local authorities.

Joshua acts regularly for local authorities, social landlords and tenants in all aspects of social housing law (both private and public). He has advised and advocated in a variety of cases related to local government powers and duties, representing clients across a range of public and regulatory law issues from planning breach injunctions to parking enforcement, including civil penalties for landlords under the Housing Act 2004. His public law practice includes the Administrative and County Courts, and Tribunals. He is familiar with out-of-hours applications to the duty judge. He also has experience of professional disciplinary proceedings.

Joshua was a Part-time External Tutor in Public Law (Judicial Review) on the Bar Vocational Course, BPP (London) in 2006 and 2007.

Recent cases 

• R (HBTN) v Sunderland City Council [2019] EWHC 3221 (Admin): Joshua successfully defended the local authority’s refusal to disclose a confidential age assessment document on the basis that the claim had become academic.
• 2-day public inquiry into a proposed toll increase for the Bournemouth-Swanage ferry, in which Joshua successfully represented a number of public authorities opposed to the price rise (September 2018)
• R (GE (Eritrea)) v SSHD and Bedford Borough Council [2015] EWHC 1406 (Admin): Joshua enabled his client to prove that the local authority had wrongly assessed her age both as a question of fact and on traditional judicial review grounds.
• R (GE (Eritrea)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department and another [2014] EWCA Civ 1490: a leading authority on the definition of ‘former relevant child’ in the Children Act 1989, the judgment establishes a local authority’s duty to consider its discretionary powers to remedy any unlawfulness arising from its erroneous assessment of a child’s age.
• 4-day Upper Tribunal age dispute hearing defending local authority’s assessment of an Albanian national – Joshua successfully resisted the Claimant’s arguments based on SA (Kuwait) v SSHD [2009] EWCA Civ 1157 that the UT should decide the case on the documents alone but should hear evidence  to assess the Claimant’s credibility (October 2014).
• R (MW) v Croydon London Borough Council, CO/10832/2011 (Upper Tribunal, 18/01/13): Joshua succeeded in establishing the claimed age of an Afghani child who had been unlawfully age-assessed by the local authority; the Tribunal made particular criticisms of the authority’s age assessment process (especially a failure to put adverse matters to the applicant).

Year of Call: 1997

Property Bar Association Agricultural Law Association Housing Law Practitioners’ Association Social Housing Law Association London Common Law and Commercial Bar Association South Eastern Circuit

MA Hons, English Literature Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (1991) Bar Vocational Course, Inns of Court School of Law in 1997/98.