Development

The firm's real estate team handles complex real estate development work for a broad range of clients within Wales, the Midlands and the South of England.

Work areas include:

  •  The acquisition assembly and disposal of complex residential and mixed-use schemes.
  • Advising landowners / farmers on the strategic development of their land, either individually, with others or else via third party agreements.
  • The negotiation of contracts, conditional contracts, options or promotion agreements.
  • Landowner agreements / collaboration agreements
  • Overage and pre-emption.

Experience includes:

  • Advising landowners on option / promotion agreements that will see their land taken forward within emerging local development plans. The firm has advised on land assemblies up to 1 000 acres in size, often across multiple land holdings.
  •  The sale of development land, by way of contract, conditional contract or option.
  • The acquisition of development land, assembly and disposal strategy within the retail, care and residential sectors. The firm has worked on schemes within the last 12 months with development values in excess of £50 million in value, many of which are located in the South of England.
  • Site assembly and plot sales. The firm has a plot sale team, which dovetails into the work undertaken by the development team.
  • Joint venture agreements between entities that wish to develop land or enter into development projects collaboratively.
  • The financing of development schemes, particularly for small and mid-sized developers.

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Meet the Team

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James Davies

Director

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Amber Ellis-Martin

Solicitor

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Case Studies

Case Study (A) – Development

The firm acts on behalf of a client within the care sector, which develops and operates care villages.

 

The acquisition was a sub-purchase of part of a brownfield development scheme in the south of England. The target site had formed part of a larger area and was being acquired by a national housebuilder, with the firm’s client acquiring a 6-acre site on which a care village would be constructed and the national housebuilder developing an adjoining residential scheme.

This was a complex land assembly. The land was acquired unconditionally, subject to a hybrid planning consent. The development of both the residential and care elements were outline and so agreement had to be reached between both the housebuilder and the firm’s client in order to regulate the reserved matters application that would follow acquisition and subsequent implementation of any consent. However, the hybrid consent was also detailed insofar as it authorised works to adjoining land, which would be carried out by three separate parties. Five separate entities therefore controlled implementation of the overall consented scheme and the satisfaction of different elements of both the hybrid consent and its attendant planning agreement. The interrelationship between these parties had to be documented and preserved in terms of both the initial land acquisition and the sub sale.

The national housebuilder also contracted to provide a serviced site for the care scheme and so obligations (backed by corresponding rights of step in and indemnity) had to be incorporated into the sub-sale contract.

A complex funding scheme was put in place to enable the transaction, which resulted in security being offered over a wider group.

This was a transaction that saw the firm working with some of the UK’s leading real estate practices to deliver what was a very satisfying outcome for its client. The firm continues to advise on the advancement of this scheme and other schemes for this client.

Case Study (A) - Development

Case Study (B) – Development

The firm acts on behalf of a landowner who owns development land in the West of England.

This individual contracted to dispose a large area conditionally to a third-party developer. The scheme was complicated by numerous factors: -

  1. The need to acquire third party rights to implement the scheme.
  2. The proposed deferral of part of the purchase price, which needed to be secured by way of a legal charge over part of the area being sold.
  3. Part of the land was sold subject to overage and so a separate overage was created to enshrine / protect this.
  4. Part of the client’s retained land has planning consent for a separate development and this consent needed to “dovetail” with that sought by the developer to ensure that both schemes could be developed out separately and without conflicting.
  5. The land being sold potentially ransomed a much larger area of land and so thought needed to be given to how best to preserve the client’s position without frustrating the current development scheme.

This was an extremely complex piece of work which highlighted the need not merely to concentrate on the transaction at hand, but also to seek to forward plan and establish a position so as to be able to capitalise (hopefully) on future neighbouring development. Considerable thought had to also be given to the accommodation of a working farm, of which the development land formed part, both in the period prior to consent being granted and thereafter, particularly during the construction stage.

Case Study (B) - Development