Social housing

“Clarke Willmott LLP provides ‘exceptional advice’ to its registered provider client base due, in part, to the ‘superb knowledge’ of joint practice heads Lindsay Felstead, Oliver Smedley, Kary Withers and Vicky Kells, who head up the firm’s housing management, development, property litigation and securitisation teams respectively.” Legal 500 2017

Our national social housing team is one of the largest of its kind in the UK delivering services across England and Wales.

The team comprises specialists from across the firm with particular expertise in social housing. We provide a “one-stop-shop” for our social housing clients by delivering seamless, sector-focussed advice across a wide range of legal areas, including corporate and commercial, planning and environment, procurement, development, construction, commercial property, finance, charging, sales, governance, renewable energy, housing and asset management, stock rationalisation, employment & HR, debt recovery, and property and commercial litigation.

We are recognised for our sector expertise by the legal directories, Chambers and The Legal 500, and are unique within the sector in our ability to operate on a national level, providing services from London and six regional offices.

We have a high profile within the social housing sector and are members of leading industry bodies such as The National Housing Federation and the Chartered Institute of Housing. This means that we are at the forefront of thought leadership within the housing sector and pass on useful information and insights to our clients. We are regular speakers and attendees at sector conferences.

We pride ourselves on our high levels of client service and in our ability to “think as a client”, and deliver added value services that are truly meaningful.

The team act for over 100 clients comprising RP’s, RSL’s. ALMO’s, local authorities, charities and care organisations. Clients range from the G15 to national groups such as The Guinness Partnership Limited and regional organisations both small and large.

We are proud to offer what we believe is one of the largest housing management teams in the country led by partner Lindsay Felstead. This team sits alongside our leading property litigation team rated Tier One in the legal journals and for the sector led by Kary Withers who manages our asset management capability. This covers a wide range of transactions from RTB, RTA to stock rationalisation, stock swaps, frameworks for maintenance agreements as well as advising on restrictive covenants, disputes in relation to property assets and commercial property and premises assets.

Our development team, led by Oliver Smedley provide partner led high level development services project managing transactions delivering on time and on budget. Construction advice, both contentious, led by Anna-Liisa Blanks-Walden, and non-contentious led by Priscilla Hall.

We provide a seamless service from acquisition through to site set up and sales led by Jonathan Stokes acting on shared ownership, open market sales and other forms of equity sale.

The corporate governance and banking capability is led by Fraser MacRae, rated as a leading individual having acted for both the funders of the sector and RPs/RSLs across England and Wales. Securitisation projects are led by Vicky Kells.

“Clarke Wilmott have supported South West Housing Initiative since its inception. Their funding and general encouragement has been critical to delivery of our message about the importance of investment in new homes of all tenures, not only to those in housing need in the South West, but to the general sustainability of its economy.”

Proud supporters of: National Housing Federation, The South West Housing Initiative (SWHI), Women in Social Housing (WISH), Community Housing Cymru.