Call:1991
Qualifications: Law LLB
Practice Teams
Civil & Commercial
Property
Mukhtiar OtwalPrint CV
Profile
Mukhtiar attended The University of Leeds (LLB) and was called to the Bar in 1991. He has been in practice at 33 Bedford Row since 2000.
He is instructed in a wide variety of commercial, property and insolvency cases.
In the context of commercial cases he has recently been involved in a number of large contractual disputes and in a wide variety of issues that have arisen out of the same. Many of the disputes have been subject to arbitration clauses and arbitration law is now an area in which Mukhtiar has considerable experience. The issues involved in and arising out of the disputes have included, disclosure applications necessitating the interpretation by the court for the first time of a statutory instrument, and assessment of costs hearings where he successfully argued as a preliminary point that a bill of costs was as a whole disproportionate and the correct meaning of "costs of and incidental to” (Legal Services Commission v Aaronson & Anor (t/a Aaronson & Co Solicitors) [2008] EWHC 90096 (Costs). Through his commercial practice, Mukhtiar has also consistently demonstrated his ability to comprehensively deal with cases involving a large volume of documentation.
In his property practice Mukhtiar is instructed in a wide range of cases including landlord and tenant matters (e.g. (1) Peter John Andrews (2) Ferina Margaret Andrews (Executors of the estate of William George Hodges, deceased) v Graham James Cunningham [2007] EWCA Civ 762 in which he successfully argued against the creation of an assured tenancy under the Housing Act 1988; an application for permission to petition to the House of Lords has recently been refused); trust disputes (e.g. a multi-party dispute where he successfully argued fraud and misrepresentation and secured declarations of trusts in favour of his clients) and non-contentious matters (e.g. he recently advised on the enforceability of covenants in respect of land upon which it was intended to build a number of properties).
Instructions undertaken in insolvency law include all areas of individual and corporate insolvency. Examples of cases recently undertaken include setting aside transactions at undervalues and preferences, and successfully, opposing on behalf of a trustee, an assertion by a mortgagee of the existence of an equitable mortgage interest over a bankrupt’s assets.
Over the last few years Mukhtiar has gained considerable experience in the Administrative Court, in particular, on behalf of the Legal Services Commission in defending judicial review applications. For example, he successfully resisted an application by a group of solicitors in seeking permission of judicially review the implementation of an immigration accreditation scheme by the Legal Services Commission and in seeking a protective costs order.