Iris Ferber KC

2005 | Silk 2023
020 7831 0222 | [email protected]

Iris Ferber KC

2005 | Silk 2023
020 7831 0222 | [email protected]

Housing Law

Iris began her legal career in 2006 as a Housing specialist. Since then, she has always maintained a busy Housing practice and a keen interest in Housing law.

Iris regularly deals with all aspects of Housing law and has long experience in dealing with complex anti-social behaviour cases, including those involving mental health issues, on behalf of both landlords and tenants.

She is particularly good at dealing with vulnerable clients and witnesses, and managing the complex legal arguments involved in Equality Act, public law and Human Rights cases.

Iris’s expertise in discrimination law generally (because of her combined practice in Housing and Employment Law) makes her particularly adept at handling Equality Act claims and defences.

Iris has extensive experience of homelessness litigation, including s204 appeals in the County Court, judicial review in the High Court, and appeals to the Court of Appeal. She regularly trains local authorities on homelessness law and procedure.

Iris also delivers very popular workshops, both online and in person to solicitors and clients at their offices, on all aspects of Housing litigation. She is a Committee member of the Social Housing Law Association.

Notable Cases

In 2024 and 2025, Iris acted for a local authority in the county court and Court of Appeal in a statutory homelessness appeal, involving the rarely-argued question of when a local authority might be permitted to re-open a homelessness decision that it has already made, on the basis of a mistake about the relevant facts. The case considered many interesting questions, including the relevance of whether the local authority was at fault for the mistake, and the extent to which the “corporate” knowledge of an entire local authority can be imputed to an individual homelessness caseworker.
In 2023 and 2024, Iris was instructed by the tenant in the remitted claims in Kalonga v Croydon LBC [2022] UKSC 7, the well-known and long-running litigation relating to fixed-term tenancies, which had reached the Supreme Court in 2022. Iris dealt with remitted and new claims, including disrepair, discrimination under the Equality Act, and homelessness.
In 2023, Iris led Angela Piears of 42BR in an unusual possession claim, on behalf of a local authority, which involved the attempted assignment of a tenancy between separated spouses in order to avoid liability for substantial rent arrears.
Since 2021, Iris has been leading Robert Winspear of 42BR, representing a local authority in a long-running, complex disrepair claim brought by a tenant with serious physical and mental health vulnerabilities. The 6-day liability trial involved complex questions of the causation of condensation mould, and the cross-examination of surveyor expert witnesses. The tenant has appealed the judgment to the High Court, and the litigation continues.
R (Sambotin) v Brent LBC [2018] EWCA Civ 1826: Iris represented the local authority in an appeal against a judicial review decision about whether the authority had the power to reconsider a homelessness decision which had already been communicated to an applicant, but which was still subject to an incomplete local connection referral.

Business Law

Iris Ferber KC has a Commercial litigation practice focused principally on contractual disputes involving misrepresentation, undue influence, duress and fraud, as well as professional negligence.

Her Commercial practice also crosses over with her Employment practice in disputes relating to post-termination restrictive covenants, where Iris is valued both for her ability to provide practical, strategic advice which avoids litigation and – when a case does proceed to Court – for her exceptional Courtroom presence and “forensic, detailed and devastating cross-examination”.

Iris delivers very popular workshops, both online and in person to solicitors and clients, on all aspects of restrictive covenant disputes, contractual disputes and professional negligence.

Notable Cases

During 2024 and 2025, Iris has been leading Jonathan Davies of 42BR in long-running High Court commercial litigation, on behalf of a company whose directors set up a rival business, resulting in claims of breach of directors’ duties, breach of covenant, misuse of confidential information, and a number of other heads of claim.
During 2023, 2024 and 2025, Iris has been instructed in a number of disputes, by both corporations and local authorities, involving serial vexatious litigants. Iris has drafted pleadings and submissions in the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, and has advised on tactics for handling and resolving such cases.
In 2022, Iris was instructed by the London Borough of Newham to obtain winding up orders against over 20 insolvent companies, which had been involved in the multi-million pound development of the Royal Albert Dock. Iris later successfully resisted a hard-fought application by those companies to rescind the winding up orders, involving technical questions of the service of the winding up petitions.

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Iris Ferber KC

Iris Ferber KC

Housing Law

Business Law

Areas of Expertise

Memberships & Committees

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