North East housing association group restructure

Members of our housing corporate and governance team completed the restructure of one of the largest housing association groups in the North East. The project was key to the housing association group achieving financial savings to mitigate the impact of rent cuts to the social housing sector.

The original group structure comprised ten separate legal entities and the restructure resulted in a leaner, more streamlined structure that could deliver greater value for money.

The group consolidation was particularly complex as it involved advising on various legal disciplines and untangling a structure that had formed over the course of several mergers of existing organisations.

We advised on the project from its inception and prepared initial options reports for the group on potential structure models to consolidate five housing associations into one and to rationalise commercial activities within the group.

As the project progressed, we worked closely with our client to convert the non-charitable group parent from a company limited by guarantee to a community benefit society. This included carrying out a full assessment of all activities of the group parent, drafting its constitutional documents and advising on the statutory conversion process under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014.

Our team also converted three other group members from companies to registered societies using the same statutory process and dissolved a charitable care and support provider subsidiary.

Other work included structuring diversified activities within the group, including development for outright sale; obtaining consent from three local authorities from which group members had previously received stock transfers; and advising on the need for third party and funder consents.

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