Residential | Housing

Our dedicated housing team provides legal advice across the UK housing sector with a focus on corporate M&A, regeneration, housing infrastructure, energy services, housing investment and funding.

Overview

Our specialist team advise the private and public sector on the planning, funding and development of sustainable low carbon housing projects. We also advise on corporate M&A and investments in the housing sector.

We have a particular specialism in working on projects linked to decarbonising the built environment. This includes advising developers, investors, funders and the public sector on sustainable Net Zero developments as well as modern methods of construction, smart systems & energy efficiency. We are committed and invested to taking positive action on climate change (so as to achieve Net Zero in the built environment) and have announced our own pledge to be Net Zero by the end of 2026. Our work in MMC builds on our experience of complex infrastructure funding and delivery where pre-manufactured value has long been the norm.

We advise on all aspects of housing, across all tenures (including private development and affordable housing) and all sub-sectors and asset classes, including build-to-rent (BTR), retirement housing and student accommodation. Our housing specialists have advised on a range of schemes and projects, ranging from smaller single-site developments, 1,000+ unit single-site housing-led schemes through to multi-site development projects. Our advice has resulted in the construction of thousands of new homes and other infrastructure across the UK, including Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Increasingly, housing is treated as an asset class within an infrastructure masterplan, and our expertise in infrastructure projects means that we are well placed to advise on all aspects of an infrastructure project requiring or enabling housing. Our report Perspectives on infrastructure: Housing includes interviews with business leaders from the housing and infrastructure sectors (including Legal & General, HSBC, TfL and St Modwen) and discusses this in more detail.

Areas of focus

Our housing expertise includes the following:

Construction
Corporate M&A
Disputes
Energy services
Funding (including debt and equity finance)
Housing infrastructure
Regeneration projects
Planning
Real estate
Environmental
Strategic land
Tax
Transport solutions

Experience

Advising FB Investors on its recommended partial cash offer for Sutton Harbour, an AIM listed company. Sutton Harbour is an award-winning waterfront regeneration specialist which owns and operates the historic Plymouth harbour and Plymouth airport.

Advising Malaysian-owned developer YTL on its entry to the UK housing market with the purchase of the former Filton Airfield, which has the potential for a mixed use regeneration including 2,675 homes and up to 24ha of employment land.

Advising St Modwen on its development agreement with Homes England to develop Locking Parklands, a new £400 million mixed-use 200 acre site. The site will create approximate 600,000 sq ft of employment space, 1450 new homes, a district centre, new schools, libraries and retail facilities.

Advising MAAS Capital Renewables B.V. in relation to a joint venture partnership between it and Solarplicity Limited in a residential asset company set up to install rooftop solar for supplying thousands of tenants of Housing Associations in the UK.

Acting on behalf of the landowner of Cardiff’s 7,000 home new ‘Garden City' providing strategic land advice for the ‘Plasdwr’ development.

Acting for Change Real Estate and a family office on the redevelopment of the 600,000 sq,ft Redcliff Quarter housing led mixed use development in Bristol’s city centre.

Acting for HSBC bank in relation to £80 million of facilities to a joint venture between Kier Developments and various social housing providers.

Acting for RBS and HSBC in relation to development and investment finance to Unite Students for over £500 million for residential accommodation.

Meet the team