HOW WE CAN HELP
Our experience covers advice and sector expertise on a range of property types including residential and commercial property developments, investment properties, retail and leisure outlets, warehouses, factories and sports and recreational facilities.
Our property team is fully supported by our property disputes team, on hand to assist should you need contentious advice and support.
WE’RE HERE TO ADVISE & GUIDE YOU
For some of you, property is your business. Others just need premises that suit their business needs. either way, we’ll provide proactive and pragmatic advice.
We know when you’re buying land to develop, taking a lease, or investing in a property portfolio, real estate transactions can be challenging, our team are on hand to assist, guide and advise at every turn.
When we say we have a full service legal property offering we really mean it.
WE ASSIST, GUIDE AND
ADVISE WITH:
Whether you occupy one or multiple sites, making your property work smarter for you can be key to your success. We’ll assist you, in often ambitious and time-pressured matters, to tailor property solutions to fit your specific operational needs.
Our experience covers advice on leasehold and freehold matters for a range of industry sectors from banks to builders’ merchants, retail to manufacturing and nightclubs to charities.
We realise that legal terms might be completely alien to you and appreciate that you have other things to focus on, so our team work hard to make what might on occasion seem an odd process, as simple and straightforward as we can.
We also have experience acting for landlords, so we understand both sides of the coin!
We can help with leases or transfers when you want to acquire a property, whether it’s your first or not and negotiate ‘licences to alter’ when you need your landlord’s consent to that refurbishment you have planned. We deal with the documentation to reflect an extension to your lease for when you’ve signed that new 5 year contract to supply distribution services to a major retailer or grant leases or sell your property when it no longer serves your requirements.
We can assist with all aspects of licensing in the hospitality and leisure sector. We know that having the right licence for your business is crucial to its success, so whether you need a temporary events licence for that event you’re hosting, a brand new premises licence for a new pub or to ensure that your existing licence is up to date following changes to the way you operate, we can help.
When applying for a new premises licence, it’s important to ensure your application reflects all of the regulated activities and the operating schedule is drafted in such a way to limit the scope for objection, whilst at the same time making it flexible enough to let you carry on with your proposed activities.
In the long run, we have proven more often than not, that it is more cost effective and faster to instruct legal specialists like us to assist dealing with these applications from the very outset.
As a key requirement, your licence is often just a single part of a bigger transaction. On property purchases, for example, we can help manage timescales in connection with new licence applications, as well as transfers of existing premises licences and DPS transfers, so that your acquisition isn’t delayed by licensing hiccups.
We also make sure that the licensing provisions in the purchase contract reflect the commercial process agreed and ensure that you’re fully prepared and protected.
If you encounter challenges with your licensing arrangements, we can assist, guide and advise how to deal with the situation, to give you the best chance of being able to keep your licence on acceptable terms.
Our specialist lawyers deal with all aspects of construction, engineering and development work, ranging from small residential schemes to major commercial developments and infrastructure projects.
We advise on both non-contentious and contentious matters and, as well as acting on stand-alone construction projects, we work closely with colleagues in our Real Estate, Corporate and Banking teams to provide construction advice as part of larger corporate or real estate transactions.
Our non-contentious services include advising on procurement arrangements and all forms of contract including all the usual ones with the acronyms like JCT, NEC, ICC, FIDIC, CIOB, ICE, I Chem E, GC Works and PPC2000. We negotiate building and engineering contracts, performance, payment and retention bonds, collateral warranties, from both sides of the fence and we naturally get involved in the construction aspects of development and funding agreements which our development team deal with. We also cover EPC and power purchase agreements in our repertoire!
On the contentious side, we can deal with payment disputes, put simply where you’ve done the work and they just won’t pay, or delay and disruption claims where you’re frustrated and inconvenienced by a missed deadline.
Where things go awry, we help resolve disputes via a number of avenues, through adjudication, expert determination, arbitration or mediation, or, if it comes to it, through the County Court and the Technology and Construction Court, depending on how it needs to be taken.
We advise on the acquisition, disposal and management of all varieties of buildings across a wide range of sectors, including offices, retail, leisure and industrial premises.
Whether you’re investing in or selling a single asset or a large portfolio, seeking capital growth or acquiring an income stream, we’ll work with you at every stage, so that we understand the property inside out and are prime position to support you in the acquisition, management and subsequent disposal of your investment.
We advise private and institutional funds, working closely with their client teams to provide a pragmatic commercial advice.
With our extensive experience our team understand the challenges you face and tailor our service to reflect your requirements.
Let’s be honest, there will always be challenges as not every transaction will be straightforward.
We take a proactive and practical approach to achieve the best possible outcome for you whatever the circumstances.
Our planning team deal with all aspects of planning and development work from householder schemes to large development and regeneration projects including advice on environmental aspects.
We provide representation on appeal in respect of applications, listed building and conservation area matters and enforcement actions.
We work with developers, applicants, landowners and mortgagees as well as third party objectors, in addition to a number of local planning authorities.
We are proud to say that our expertise is well-known and alongside having been commissioned by the Solicitor’s Journal to write their guide to the Planning Act 2008, we regularly writing for a number of national publications such as Estates Review and Property Law Journal
We truly offer an all under one roof service and the list of services we provide in connection with planning advice is extensive so here are a few key words that encapsulate elements of this experience and expertise:
Initial site appraisal and investigation – advising on planning policy – drafting support statements – checking acceptability and drafting of planning conditions – applications to vary conditions – checking certificates of lawfulness – Judicial Review and other Statutory Challenges – compulsory purchase and compensation issues – planning and development related agreements – infrastructure agreements – highways issues – village greens…
Key members of the team
TALK TO US
We have known Terence Ritchie for more than 20 years and have always relied upon his specialist advice on all matters connected with Real Estate funding. We have broadened our engagement with genuine experts in their field at EMW Law LLP including Sean Halliwell (Banking) and Marco Mauro (Planning). Most of all, Terence and his team are a pleasure to work with and we strongly recommend their services to Clients, Specialist Lenders and Banks involved in Real Estate transactions.
“I have been using EMW Law for almost two years, for a variety of work. During that time, I have found that the service provided by the company is consistently faultless. Last year, I needed to raise some finance on a rental property, which for various reasons proved very complicated and took some months to complete. However, I found that at all times, the staff were on the ball and indeed ahead of the game, and responded quickly to all the numerous changes of document requirements, information, explanations and communications between all the parties involved. I would have no hesitation to recommend EMW Law as my go-to provider for all my legal requirements.”
Batuhan and his team provided commercial input together with a fast and efficient service allowing us to complete within a very tight deadline
Having supported us through the buy-out process in 2014 and remained our go to lawyers since, EMW were the obvious choice to support the Springboard shareholders through the exit process. We certainly made the right choice. EMW are responsive, collaborative and pragmatic, always achieving the right balance between representing our best interests and delivering on our wish for the transaction to proceed to close as quickly as possible. I couldn’t be more satisfied with the outcome and the quality of service that EMW provided.
EMW’s assistance in this important strategic transaction for us has been superb.
Working with the team at EMW on two recent commercial property acquisitions has been a very reassuring experience for us. Especially their expertise and professionalism in dealing with detailed seller’s special terms and lease provisions.
EMW has provided the company with sage and astute advice for many years and was the only firm we considered using when approached to sell our business. EMW provided us with invaluable support and guidance throughout the transaction process and we cannot praise them enough. Drawing on years of experience, the team’s advice was both wise and pragmatic which helped us overcome challenges and enabled us to complete the complex business sale in a timely manner.
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