Housing corporate services

Our housing corporate team combines an in-depth knowledge of the social housing sector with the business expertise of a market-leading law firm to bring a unique service offering to our clients. In an increasingly commercial world, housing associations need access to top class corporate legal services in addition to expertise in social housing law. At Penningtons Manches Cooper, our social housing lawyers provide exactly that.

We advise on all corporate activities undertaken by housing associations. Our team has specific expertise in mergers (and de-mergers), group re-organisations and re-structures, corporate joint ventures, acquisitions or disposals of commercial subsidiaries, commercial projects and specialist commercial advice. We also provide guidance on the associated regulatory, charity law and governance issues.

On numerous occasions, we have helped bring associations and groups together in a variety of different types of merger. We have assisted them in establishing new partnerships and advised on the handling of intragroup matters including governance, funding and intragroup contractual arrangements. We are also one of the very few law firms with specific experience of cross-border mergers and of demerging subsidiaries from a group.

As the development of new homes becomes an ever more expensive and risky business, we help our association clients to set up and operate corporate joint ventures with private developers, local authorities and others to share the risk and costs. We are experts in structuring joint ventures to maximise the chances of success and to minimise areas of uncertainty for our clients. Additionally, we assist on grant agreements (whether from Homes England/Greater London Authority or other grant making bodies) and provide guidance to our housing clients on their obligations under these arrangements.

As a multi-disciplinary practice, we have access to a range of corporate and commercial legal experts that many other specialist housing law firms cannot match. Whether it is procurement, state aid, tax saving structures and advice, IT projects and data protection/Freedom of Information Act requests or simply private sector corporate/commercial advice for your non-housing association subsidiaries, our housing lawyers can help you successfully navigate through the legal minefields.

Our expert dispute resolution lawyers are always on hand to help resolve any commercial disputes that our housing clients may have. They are skilled in all forms of dispute resolution including mediation and arbitration as well as litigation through the courts and focus on protecting our clients’ reputational and commercial interests. We are also specialists in charity law, co-operative and community benefit society law, company law and social housing regulation. This level of technical expertise ensures that our advice takes account of all legal factors relevant to your organisation.