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Real Estate Development

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Competition for sites, access to funding, changing legislation, achieving planning consent, rights to light issues and community infrastructure levy are just a few of the challenges facing developers in today’s real estate market.

Whether your development is mixed use, commercial, residential or an urban regeneration project, our team of real estate specialists can help you navigate the entire development cycle from site acquisition right through to lettings and disposal.

Our real estate group includes experts in real estate finance, planning, disputes, construction and tax, allowing us to provide developer clients with specialist advice at each stage of the development process.

Working together with clients including Land Securities, Berkeley Group, Crest, Taylor Wimpey, Sainsbury’s, Imperial College London and Battersea Power Station, we are involved in some of the most significant urban regeneration, residential, retail, leisure, office, hotel, PRS, student accommodation and mixed use development projects on going across the UK at the moment.

10/11/2023
Driving sustainability in real estate and construction
Contributing to the fight against climate change and creating social value are now priorities for the real estate and construction sectors.   The long-term nature of the built environment means that resilience and sustainability should be considered at every stage if buildings are to be environmentally and socially responsible. This brings both opportunities and challenges for the businesses that create, own or maintain it. They must consider the evolving technical, regulatory and market landscape, to ensure that their investments are future-proofed commercially, as well as environmentally and socially. This section of Bandwidth looks at some of the ESG issues that confront developers and property owners, and how they can incorporate practical solutions into their businesses.
Highlights of our experience in Real Estate Development in the UK
Land Securities on the development and letting of Trinity Centre, Leeds. Na­tion­al Grid/Berkeley Group, St William JV on the development of major residential and mixed-use development schemes across Lon­don...
Law-Now: Real Estate
Visit Law-Now for legal know-how and commentary

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20/02/2024
MEES - why are local authorities failing to enforce?
The UK government has a continued drive and commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Yet as highlighted in the first of this series of publications, “MEES – are the regulations working?” the risk of MEES enforcement is low. Against a hotly discussed political backdrop, why is it that local authorities are continually failing to enforce the MEES regulations? Left alone, the existing approach serves to undermine the UK’s net zero strategy.
Green lease drafting and the Better Building Partnership’s new green leases...
This talk will provide a general introduction to green lease drafting and consider the new green leases toolkit from the Better Buildings Partnership to be launched in early 2024
07/12/2023
CMS advises Aldar Properties on London Square acquisition
International law firm CMS has advised Aldar Properties PJSC (Aldar), the leading real estate developer, investor, and manager in the UAE, on its acquisition of London Square Developments for an enterprise...
28/06/2023
Tomorrow
Taking the long view Even in challenging times, real estate investors continue to have a strong degree of confidence in the future of the sector.
14/06/2023
Sustainable offices and EPC requirements
Investors may be moving towards the view that making offices sustainable does not necessarily equate to higher costs for occupiers.
14/06/2023
London
The majority of UK real estate professionals continue to believe that London is overvalued. As our chart shows, this is very much business as usual. Over the past eight years, only 2021 - when investors began to wonder what a post-covid market might look like - has challenged the status quo. Even then, what we saw was only a significant narrowing of the gap, not a reversal. In this year’s polling, 62% of our respondents feel London is overvalued, as opposed to 6% who believe it is undervalued. These are the most bearish numbers we have seen since pre‑Brexit days.
14/06/2023
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14/06/2023
The view from the UK
Every year we ask a cross-section of leading UK real estate professionals for their views on the market. This year we polled 270 experts, including 62 investors and 54 developers. In many ways they share the outlook of the global investors we surveyed, with long-term confidence tempered by short-term concerns. Overall, 38% reported feeling optimistic about the market, while 34% describe themselves as neutral and 28% are pessimistic. Although positive, this take on the market is unsurprisingly more cautious than the one we found 12 months ago, with sentiment falling back to levels last seen at the beginning of the pandemic as the more bullish outlook of the past two years recedes.
14/06/2023
Global cities
As our chart shows, the genuinely ‘global’ cities remain the most appealing (albeit by slim margins), with the top four slots going to London, Paris, Tokyo and New York.
14/06/2023
The big picture
Despite a difficult year and an uncertain outlook, we found strong underlying positives among investors globally.
06/06/2023
Technology
Many in the real estate industry are keen to embrace technological innovations, including the latest green technologies.
06/06/2023
Future Planning?
One thing nearly all our UK respondents agree on is that the planning system is not working and needs investment. A massive 90% say the system is slowing down real estate development, while 93% reckon it is under-resourced.