Rory Cowan
Rory Cowan is a commercial and property litigator with over 18 years of experience. He regularly appears in Sheriff Courts throughout Scotland handling a wide range of commercial and property disputes. Rory represents clients in high value commercial disputes including commercial contract disputes, corporate and partnership cases, professional negligence, insolvency, interdicts, boundary disputes and encroachment cases.
He has a proven track record dealing with commercial and other disputes often with cross border elements for European companies involving complex jurisdictional arguments and issues of ‘applicable law’ as well as defamation and intellectual property disputes.
Rory is also one of the leading providers of legal services to the Private Rented Sector (PRS) in Scotland. He provides legal services to a wide range of organisations operating in the PRS from small agencies to large UK-wide lettings agents, tenancy deposit schemes, rental guarantee insurers and bespoke software providers. Rory is the Scottish solicitor for the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA). He is also the Scottish external examiner for the awarding body of the National Federation of Property Professionals who oversee ARLA’s professional examinations. Beyond that, Rory’s experience and depth of knowledge in this area has been recognised by his appointment to the role of Legal Chair to the Private Rented Housing Panel a judicial body set up to adjudicate on private landlord and tenant disputes over housing conditions and will sit in the new First-Tier Tribunal when it takes over the civil functions of the Sheriff Court in relation to PRS cases. He is also regularly asked to speak at industry conferences and write for specialist lettings publications.
Moreover, Rory handles hundreds of court actions each year for repossession on behalf of landlords throughout Scotland. He deals with all areas of repossession from private sector tenancies to commercial property leases. He deals with all matters of debt proceedings ranging from small claims to significant debt actions in the Court of Session.
He has been engaged in numerous matters involving interdicts and matters arising from commercial disputes (including cases of employment contracts and service agreements as well as director’s fiduciary duties) as well as property based interdicts dealing with encroachments and boundary disputes.
Rory also has considerable experience in dealing with statutory appeals. He is regularly instructed in relation to appeals arising from housing legislation such as those relating to Houses in Multiple Occupation.