The report of the Parliamentary committee on residential leasehold reform has been published containing strong recommendations, many of them radical, and some where it is not at all clear how they could work in practice. Nevertheless, this is likely to be the future and a good commercial conclusion may be to assume that this will … Read more
Over the last 18 months, Herbert Smith Freehills has been working with the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council (the CREFC), a trade body for real estate debt lenders and investors in Europe, to help produce the new edition of CREFC’s due diligence guide for lenders against UK commercial real estate. The CREFC Due Diligence (DD) … Read more
The SRA Code of Conduct 2011 forms part of the Solicitors Regulation Authority Handbook. The Code is to be adhered to by all lawyers – both in-house and in private practice. Sometimes it’s good to have a timely reminder of aspects of the Code which you don’t necessarily come across that often. Of particular interest … Read more
Kate Wilson and Lucy Morton, lawyers in the Real Estate and Planning teams at HSF, provide a summary of the importance of marking documents with the words ‘subject to contract’ when entering a real estate transaction or joint venture arrangement, as discussed in the recent Court of Appeal case of Generator Developments v Lidl UK … Read more
At the end of July, hard on the heels of the Housing White Paper published in February, DCLG issued a Consultation Paper on “Tackling unfair practices in the leasehold market”. If you wish to make your voice heard prompt action is needed – the period for responses expires on 19 September. The main points which … Read more
Planning Resource has published an on-line article by Matthew White, Head of Planning, London, discussing the conclusions of the May 2017 report by the London School of Economics concerning the impact of overseas buyers on housing supply. For the Planning Resource article, please see here or contact us. The LSE report finds that London attracts a significant … Read more
Author: Simon Elliott, Senior Associate, Real Estate, London A number of recent transactions where we have acted for banks and lenders have emphasised that care needs to be taken by developers at the outset of a project when buying into or putting in place a leasehold structure of the site. We have seen how important … Read more
Author: Paul Chases, Senior Associate, Corporate Real Estate, London and Alex Wright, Associate, Corporate Real Estate, London In an article published in Property Week on 2 March 2017, Paul Chases and Alex Wright of our corporate real estate team discuss the potential benefits for real estate investors of the proposed introduction of Private Fund Limited Partnerships ("PFLP"s), … Read more
