Judges and members of the Upper Tribunal, Lands Chamber
The holders of judicial office in the Upper Tribunal, Lands Chamber are its Chamber President, who leads the Chamber and who is a High Court Judge; the Deputy Chamber President, who assists the President in the management of the Chamber; one further Upper Tribunal Judge; three Members of the Upper Tribunal (who are Chartered Surveyors); and members of the Circuit Bench who sit occasionally in the Chamber but whose main judicial work is in courts elsewhere.
Mr Justice Edwin Johnson, the Chamber President, is a High Court Judge appointed in 2021 to sit in the Chancery Division. He became a Deputy High Court Judge in 2017. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel (now King’s Counsel) in 2006. He was called to the Bar in 1987, where he specialised in all aspects of real property law.
Martin Rodger KC, the Deputy Chamber President, has been a judge since 2001, sitting initially on a part-time basis in courts and tribunals until his appointment as the full time Deputy Chamber President of the Upper Tribunal, Lands Chamber in June 2013. Before that he had spent 26 years as a barrister specialising in property litigation and became a KC in 2006. He was appointed a Deputy High Court Judge in 2017.
Judge Elizabeth Cooke is a solicitor, and has been a judge since 2010, initially on a part-time basis and was appointed a Deputy High Court Judge in 2013. From 2015-2019 she was Principal Judge in the land registration division of the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), and in 2019 she was appointed a judge in the Upper Tribunal, Lands Chamber. She was formerly a professor of Law at the University of Reading, and from 2008 to 2015 she served as a Law Commissioner for England and Wales.
Peter McCrea FRICS FCIArb is a Chartered Surveyor and qualified arbitrator. Prior to being appointed a Surveyor Member of the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) in 2013, he had a 25-year career in practice, specialising in valuation and dispute resolution. His former roles include membership of the RICS President’s panels of Arbitrators and of Independent Experts for commercial property rent reviews, acting as adjudicator on residential tenancy deposit disputes, and membership of the Disciplinary Committees of RICS and the ICAEW.
Diane Martin MRICS, FAAV was appointed a Surveyor Member of the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) in 2019 and has been in post since February 2020. She previously worked in commercial valuation practice in London for a national firm. She qualified as a Chartered Surveyor and Agricultural Valuer in 1985, and in her early professional life practised as a partner in a small rural firm. In 1991 she was appointed Senior Lecturer in Valuation at the Royal Agricultural University, where she taught valuation theory and practice to students of real estate and rural land management for over 20 years.
Mark Higgin FRICS was appointed a Surveyor Member of the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) in 2019 and has been in post since November 2020. He qualified as a Chartered Surveyor in 1988 and, prior to joining the judiciary, spent 34 years specialising in the valuation of commercial property. For the latter ten years he was a senior partner in a national firm of surveyors, and between 2010 and 2019 was Chair of the RICS Rating and Local Taxation Policy Panel.
His Honour Judge David Hodge KC is a Specialist Chancery Circuit Judge and sits as a High Court Judge in the North West of England, based in Manchester and Liverpool. He sits in the Upper Tribunal, Lands Chamber from time to time, in London and the North West.
His Honour Judge Milwyn Jarman KC is based in Cardiff and has been the Specialist Chancery Circuit Judge for Wales since 2007. He sits as a High Court Judge and in the Upper Tribunal, Lands Chamber from time to time, especially in cases concerned with property in Wales.