Stephanie Kingdon

Partner, Team Leader of Bristol Property Disputes Bristol Office

+44 117 233 1713 +44 7974 360407 [email protected]

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Stephanie Kingdon

Stephanie joined Birketts in June 2025. She is a Partner and leads our property disputes team in the Bristol office.

Stephanie specialises in commercial property disputes, with a particular focus on strategic risk mitigation and complex dispute resolution across the retail, infrastructure, energy and renewables sectors. She acts for national and regional commercial property owners and investors – including prominent retailers, landlords, tenants, transport operators and renewable energy developers.

Stephanie is a core member of our retail sector group. Her practice includes extensive experience of the retail sector, managing large national occupational portfolios for household‑name brands and charities. She also handles technically complex, high‑value infrastructure disputes, often involving multi‑disciplinary project teams. Stephanie is known for delivering clear, commercially focused solutions and for navigating complex retail portfolio strategies, as well as contentious issues that intersect with large‑scale development, regeneration and operational projects.

Notable expertise includes advising on:

Retail

Rent reviews; re‑gears; lease termination (including forfeiture and break rights); asset and portfolio management; contested and uncontested lease renewals (including 1954 Act strategy and litigation); landlord consent and alteration disputes; site clearance; disrepair and dilapidations; breach of covenant; service charge challenges; and the full spectrum of landlord and tenant disputes

Infrastructure

Title and ownership issues; disputes under development agreements; securing and enforcing land rights for infrastructure projects; statutory and contractual undertakings; and advising on the acquisition, protection and expansion of operational space for leading transport operators.

Energy and renewables

Complex contractual and interpretation disputes; issues arising under agreements for lease or purchase; options and overage agreements; land rights (including easements and restrictive covenants); access and operational rights; and trespass and nuisance claims involving energy, renewables and grid‑related assets.

Recent work highlights

Advising a major national retailer on its expansion programme, including the acquisition of substantial leasehold and freehold portfolios from a UK supermarket chain across multiple sites, addressing environmental issues, landlord refusals of consent, and complex enforceability issues relating to options to purchase.

Advising a Strategic Combined Authority and Mayoral Development Corporation on the ownership and operation of multiple substation assets and infrastructure forming part of a large private‑wire electricity network in the UK.

Advising a leading UK motorway service station operator on a strategically significant national EV‑charger rollout, including associated substations and wider infrastructure across its UK portfolio, and managing consent and land‑rights requirements.

Acting for a national infrastructure company on multi‑million‑pound “lift and shift” wayleave disputes arising from a UK‑wide network enhancement and electrification programme.

Experience & education

Stephanie previously trained and practiced as a property disputes lawyer in Bristol for 8 years at Womble Bond Dickinson before joining Foot Anstey’s Real Estate Disputes Team in Bristol in late 2019.

Stephanie studied law (LLB) at the University of Warwick and completed the Legal Practice Course at the University of the West of England.