Real estate

At Penningtons Manches Cooper, our top-ranked real estate practice delivers exceptional legal advice across the full spectrum of real estate services. Our team combines strength in depth with over 120 partners, consultants, associates, and other legal professionals supporting the practice. We offer focused, practical and high quality advice on all stages and types of real estate transactions.

Comprehensive real estate legal support

Our expertise spans investment sales and purchases, funding agreements, development schemes, landlord and tenant matters, portfolio management, structuring and joint ventures, residential development including promotion agreements and strategic land site assembly, plot sales and enfranchisement as well as quality, site-specific commercial property work. Additionally, we provide specialist planning, taxation and disputes advice, offering comprehensive support across all aspects of real estate law.

The team’s diverse UK and international client base includes property institutions, funds, entrepreneurs and family offices, property companies, housebuilders both large and small, contractors, banks, corporate occupiers and large corporates with surplus properties. We are particularly strong in delivering expert guidance to the social housing sector, residential development, commercial and mixed-use developers, hotels, healthcare landlords and tenants, and educational establishments.

In a competitive market, real estate advisers must demonstrate their ability to provide a proactive service tailored to clients’ specific commercial requirements, adding value as well as supplying legal advice. Our detailed and up to date knowledge of the key issues you face enables us to offer practical solutions that meet your expectations and allow the best future return on your investment. We pride ourselves on our ability to stay ahead of market trends and regulatory changes, ensuring that our advice is always relevant and commercial.

They have a full service offering and are a national powerhouse… they take the time to understand the client’s business.

Our lawyers blend expertise and efficiency with a thorough understanding of your needs to provide you with the right specialist skills, realistic costs and appropriate timescales throughout the acquisition, development, sale and management of individual properties or substantial portfolios.

We are signatories of the British Property Federation’s Net Zero Pledge which aims to achieve a net zero carbon property sector by 2050. Supporting our clients as they commit to more sustainable buildings and a greener environment, we offer cross-sector, expert guidance on developing, investing in, and managing greener and smart real estate. We advise on green retrofit, EV infrastructure, heat networks, renewable energy projects, and cleantech, and also specialise in wind farms, and green energy.

To find out more about our range of real estate services, please use the menu below.

How we help our clients

Building and fire safety

Construction and construction disputes

Landlord and tenant

Planning law

Real estate development

Real estate disputes

Real estate finance

Real estate investment

Real estate tax

Residential property and conveyancing

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Penningtons is amongst the very best of the firms I deal with. They are practical, diligent, thorough and robust in their advice and dealings with other parties – in short, everything clients want in their legal advisors.

Penningtons are experts in construction and are able to provide practical advice with knowledge of the real world construction environment. They are able to advise on the balance between being legally correct, but also thinking about long-term relationships and negotiation strategies.

They are extremely knowledgeable, with a specialist legal team who have been in this industry for many years.

Recent work highlights

Middlewood Locks regeneration

Acting for Scarborough Group on the regeneration of Middlewood Locks, including the financing of the development’s third phase with Homes England. The site’s initial phase of 1,117 homes was then forward-sold to a build to rent operator with lettings to several retailers.

Structural and fire safety disputes

Acting for institutional investors in claims against housebuilders over structural and fire safety issues, including applications under the Building Safety and Cladding Safety Schemes. We negotiated and implemented agreements to investigate and undertake remedial works.

Section 106 precedent agreement

Acting for the local planning authority on residential developments for 443, 342, 198 and 155 dwellings across strategic housing sites, drafting a precedent section 106 agreement to allow the sites to come forward individually whilst providing its share of overall infrastructure.

Multi-let retail park acquisition

Advising an institutional investor on the prospective purchase of three multi-let retail parks from a UK property investor. The deal included 40 occupational leases which our multi-disciplinary team dealt with efficiently and on time.

Procurement and development strategy

Advising Cornall Council and Treveth on the establishment of various vehicles to deliver their £600 million investment and housing development programmes, including 170 properties across six developments and 48 commercial units spanning 10 sites.

Multi-tenant business park

Representing Northern Trust on the acquisition and ongoing management of Vesuvius Business Park in Worksop, a 4.13 acre site comprising 16 trade counter units and three retail buildings totalling 47,000 sq ft, including various occupiers.

Apportionment of service charge

Representing Aviva in the recent Supreme Court case of Aviva v Williams in relation to a complex service charge dispute focusing on the ability of the landlord unilaterally to vary the apportionment of charges.

G15 new build sales programme

Supporting Peabody, one of the UK’s oldest not-for-profit housing associations, on all aspects of its new build sales programme of outright (UK and international) and shared ownership sales.

Apportionment of service charge

G15 new build sales programme

Supporting Peabody, one of the UK’s oldest not-for-profit housing associations, on all aspects of its new build sales programme of outright (UK and international) and shared ownership sales.