Public real estate, urban planning and development

Carrying out a real-estate operation, whether it is in the housing, office, commercial or industrial sector, requires knowledge of all the legal tools needed to carry out your projects, as well as of the relevant risks.

The CMS Francis Lefebvre Avocats team offers you a comprehensive range of legal services to help you successfully complete of your real estate operations, regardless of your project’s size.

Whether you are a public or private contracting authority or a private operator, our team can advise you, as well as represent you before the various courts, at every step in the arrangement and completion of your development and construction project.

We thus provide support during your acquisition of real estate from public and private entities (right of urban preemption, right of expropriation for public utility) or when taking a lease (perpetual administrative lease, perpetual administrative enhancement lease, authorisation to occupy the public domain, etc.), but also in the scope of complex real estate operations that involve issues of volume and co-ownership. We are supported by our property law team when necessary.

Some real estate operations require thinking about the need to develop the perimeter of the operation (road works, public facilities, networks, etc.). In this respect, we can help you with the various public entities (local public entities, territorial groupings and public development agencies or institutions) and operators (mixed-economy companies, local public development companies, etc.) so that we can determine together the legal, contractual, financial and tax approach for carrying out your development operations.

In addition, we provide advice tailored to your operational issues in relation to the adaptation of urban planning documents necessary for your project (changes in the local urban planning rules, public consultation procedures, public enquiries, etc.) and in the development, follow-up and implementation of administrative authorisations (urban planning permits, change of use permits, commercial use permits, ICPE declarations/permits, water law, land clearing, etc.).

We have developed special expertise in the area of urban planning taxation which enables us to inform you and defend you in connection with compiling your files and when your urban planning taxes are collected (development tax, RAP, tax for creating offices, commercial premises and storage in the Greater Paris region, etc.) and recurring taxes (TEOM, CFE, etc.) generated by your project.

Our being members of the ORIE, GRIDAUH and SERDEAUT working groups enables us to keep a close eye on all changes to legislation, regulations and case law that may affect your projects.