Social housing solicitors

We act for borrowers and lenders on a variety of funding arrangements, including bilateral and syndicated facilities, private placements, aggregated bonds and public issue bonds. Our banking team deals with loan facility documentation, aggregated bond loans and note purchase agreements.

Our large property charging team project manages the securing of property portfolios (from single substituted properties to portfolios of 12,000+ homes) within tight timescales and regularly assists with pre-charging projects, charging to security trustees on an unallocated basis, providing top-up due diligence and reliance letters, and negotiation of s.106 mortgagee exclusion clauses.

Our works with businesses of all sizes to help navigate them through all types of contentious and non-contentious legal issues. The non-contentious team has particular specialism in information technology law, data protection law and intellectual property advice. Meanwhile, the contentious commercial team are able to support you with a wide variety of disputes, from professional negligence, contractual disputes and civil litigation.

We advise on all aspects of commercial property, including the grant of new and renewal leases, surrenders, licences, deeds of variation, wayleaves and telecoms leases.

Our experienced construction team provides advice on all aspects of construction projects – from support with the procurement strategy, through to the preparation and negotiation of the contract documents, including development agreements, building contracts, consultant appointments and collateral warranties.

We also offer full support during and after the project. Our primary focus is on dispute avoidance by offering pragmatic and timely advice. If a dispute is unavoidable then we have a large team of experienced specialists across our various offices to advise on all forms of dispute resolution, including all types of alternative dispute resolution.

Building Safety and the remediation of problem schemes is an ongoing priority for the sector. We have extensive experience of cladding/fire safety claims and are able to expertly handle these issues.

Our partner-led corporate team advises on a range of transactions, including mergers, transfers of engagements, amalgamations and acquisitions/business sales and has experience in structuring and implementing corporate joint ventures on multi-million pound development projects.

Our corporate tax law experts offer comprehensive advice on planning and compliance tax matters, working closely with their clients to ensure they understand your objectives and deliver tailored tax and legal advice that is both technically accurate and commercially astute.

Our industry-leading team of debt recovery lawyers has been operating for more than 25 years and combines the abilities of a debt collection agency with the expertise of a top law firm. We work hard to recover outstanding debts fast and cost-effectively, usually settling cases without the need for formal legal action. Over the last ten years we’ve achieved outstanding results, recovering nearly £250 million for our clients.

Our specialist team of employment lawyers advises on the whole spectrum of employment law issues, from pre-employment matters through to terminations and Tribunals, as well as the employment law aspects of commercial transactions, including TUPE.

Our specialist Regulatory solicitors closely monitor the latest issues impacting the social housing sector an provide bespoke training to ensure you remain updated with the changing landscape and can manage any risks affecting your organisation.

They are complemented by our governance specialists who are well-versed in supporting housing providers to remain industry compliant and are experienced in providing advice on issues including amendments to constitutional documents, board and member meetings and other policies and procedures.

Our team can support you in ensuring you remain compliant across a range of Health and Safety issues, as well as handle any contentious issues you may face, whether your organisation or employees are under investigation, or the organisation has been affected by safety breaches of another party. They have a strong track record representing clients regarding fatalities and serious injuries in the workplace.

We understand that building safety is an ongoing and considerable concern for housing providers, and we also have a dedicated Building Safety sub-team who can look after you regarding any fire safety, cladding, or gas safety issues and more.

Our exceptional housing management team specialises in advising housing associations, local authorities and arms-length management organisations (ALMOs) on tenancy management issues including all types of enforcement proceedings, as well as PRS tenancies, exemptions, policies and procedures and income .

Within this team also sits our specialist disrepair team who can support your organisation with a full spectrum of issues, helping you to stay on top of keeping your properties in good working order.

Our Homes Sales team provides a seamless service for site set up, plot sales and infrastructure matters. The team have extensive experience in residential and mixed-use site set up structures and open market, shared ownership, older persons schemes, rent to buy and first homes disposals. They are also able to assist with the infrastructure agreements on new developments for examples s.104, s.38, transfer of sub-stations and deeds of easement.

The team deal with all matters related to the lifecycle of shared ownership properties. They have specialist units that act solely for social housing clients in buying and selling residential street properties, staircasing, share resales, Right to Buy and Acquire, deeds of variation, leasehold enfranchisements and lease extensions (both formal and informal) matters. The team also have a unit that specialises in auction sales of residential properties.

Our distinguished partner-led team advises on planning and environmental matters, including section 106 and 278 agreements, planning applications and appeals, compulsory purchase, TVGs, contaminated land, SUDs/SABs and heritage, ecological (including Biodiversity Net Gain and nutrient neutrality) and flooding issues. The team works closely with other in-house teams including Banking and Securitisation on charging of assets, our property teams on due diligence, and Property Litigation on legal challenges including Judicial Review.

We have worked with national and G15 providers in streamlining their portfolios, enabling them to focus on their core areas by selling shared-ownership properties, tenanted homes and care-homes.  Our use of technology (including AI support) means that we can undertake large-scale high-level due diligence quickly to give you certainty that you can transact. Our multi-disciplinary team draws expertise from across our sector specialists, including advice on governance, staff transfers, commercial and IT contracts and tenancy matters. We also act for organisations looking to bid for/acquire portfolios, working collaboratively with multiple in-house teams to ensure a successful outcome.

We advise on all aspects of site assembly, land acquisitions and disposals. We have particular expertise in advising housing associations on development agreements, joint ventures, collaboration, grant and funding agreements as well as housing regeneration schemes. We also offer advice on the risk and benefits of new commercial and funding opportunities

Including development disputes, residential and commercial leasehold issues and general asset management

Our property litigation team has been highly ranked no. 1 in Chambers and Legal 500 for over 10 years. The team advise on all aspects of development disputes including site clearance, easement/right of way issues and adverse possession; leasehold issues including section 20, FTT applications including dispensation applications; and commercial property matters including the renewal and termination of business leases.

Our team advises on all aspects of public procurement regulation, drawing on Clarke Willmott’s market-leading experience in social housing to anticipate and respond to the kind of issues often faced by organisations in the sector. We are also highly experienced in advising on, and responding to, procurement disputes within tight timescales. In addition, we regularly advise on the regulation of grant funding and other forms of public financial assistance, under the UK subsidy control regime.

Our specialist telecoms team act exclusively for landowners in dealing with the removal of telecoms equipment, the grant of interim and permanent rights for new masts, the renewal of mast agreements and the grant of new wayleaves and new commercial agreements with fibre providers.