Real Estate | Secured Lending
Incentive schemes
We have experience of a wide range of incentive schemes including the following:
part exchange and chain breaker
deferred payments
schemes that enable the buyer to take a lease initially and buy the freehold later
equity share loans
HCA HomeBuy direct
HCA FirstBuy
We are used to dealing with different clients’ requirements in relation to such schemes, including checking documentation prior to issue of contracts, ensuring procedures and undertakings are complied with, and collating all stipulated documentation post-completion.
We also deal with a considerable number of freehold reversion sales of completed leasehold developments for our housebuilder clients, including advance sales with inbuilt retained development rights.
We negotiate and agree management agreements with professional management companies, and advance options to management companies to be owned and controlled by purchasers or leaseholders.
We deal with a wide range of adoption and infrastructure agreements, including agreements under the Highways Act 1980 and Water Industries Act 1991, easements and agreements with supply companies for bulk supplies at discounted rates.
Property finance
Our Real Estate Finance team is focused on the funding of real estate assets in all sectors. We act for banks, funds, investors, developers and borrowers in funding solutions ranging from the routine to the highly complex. We work closely with colleagues in complementary practice groups, including Construction, Tax and Insolvency, to provide seamless, value-added advice, and the highest levels of service to our clients.
Notable work
- advising a European bank in connection with a development loan for a complex mixed-use London development
- efficient funding on the purchase of a prime central London property
- advising a developer on the purchase and funding of a phased development site against the background of numerous competing claims from secured and unsecured creditors
- acting for liquidators in the realisation and work-out of a fund with numerous mezzanine loans to UK developers
- advising an overseas bank on the processes and regulatory issues relating to the launch of new loan products being made overseas to its customers who wish to acquire property in the English market place, which has included creation of its lending and security documentation and assisting in an advisory capacity with the creation of loan documentation in the local jurisdiction
Related Expertise
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News & Insights
This County Court lease renewal case under Part 2 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (“LTA 1954”) relates to the tenant’s attempt to include a break clause in a renewal lease and is a notable application of the Court’s approach to determining renewal lease terms set out in the leading case of O'May v City of London Real Property Co Ltd [1983] AC 726 (“O’May”).
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry has, today, published its final phase of the report to examine the circumstances leading up to and surrounding the fire at Grenfell Tower on the night of 14 June 2017. The report highlights significant deficiencies in the current building safety regulations and is likely to have a major impact on the construction industry, manufacturers and property owners.
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 (“the Act”) introduces several significant changes affecting enfranchisement, making it easier and more cost-effective for residential leaseholders to extend their leases or purchase the freehold of their properties. The key impacts on enfranchisement are set out in this article.
A Laytons’ team of real estate lawyers will be in Cannes during MIPIM from 12-15 March 2024. Please use the form to contact us if you would like to arrange a meeting in Cannes during these dates.
A flying freehold has no relationship to a flying fortress (a US Boeing engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930’s) but is an English legal term to describe a freehold which overhangs (or underlies) another freehold. There is a counterpart situation known as a creeping freehold, for example, a basement or cellar belonging to one freehold underlies a different freehold at ground level.
We are pleased to share that Honey Dave has been appointed the Head of the India Desk at Laytons ETL.
Save the date for our upcoming Legal Insights seminar on Stamp Duty Land Tax. On 29th June, Laytons ETL Partners, Honey and Marc, will explore all you need to know about SDLT.
We are delighted to share that Laytons ETL Partner, David Lewis, has been appointed Head of Real Estate.
We are delighted to share that Honey Dave has been appointed Partner. Honey qualified as a Licensed Conveyancer in 2009, and is proficient in dealing with both residential and commercial transactions. Having joined Laytons in 2021, we are excited to see what Honey achieves as she progresses into her new position!
Tax Partner, Marc Selby has been featured in Telegraph Money in an article highlighting home buyers using a “granny annexe loophole” to cut their stamp duty bill have faced a crackdown from the taxman amid a rise in false claims.
We understand that dealing with your family affairs requires more than just sound advice and technical excellence. We invest the time to get to know our clients’ circumstances, needs and preferences to deliver commercially informed and practical results for you.
In an attempt to crackdown on foreign criminals using property to launder money, the UK government has, for a number of years, attempted to introduce a register of those overseas entities which hold UK property.
A receiver is an individual (or those acting jointly) appointed by a creditor that holds a charge over the assets of a debtor to take custody of the charged assets, manage those assets and receive the income from them. Usually, a receiver will also have the power to sell the assets and to apply the proceeds of sale in satisfaction of the secured debt.
In May 2019, the Court of Appeal upheld the 2018 High Court decision to quash a local authority’s registration of land as a town or village green. The Court of Appeal held that the adopted core strategy policies of the local authority gave rise to a trigger event that precluded the local authority from registering the land as a town or village green.
Usually a ransom strip is a strip of land lying between an adopted highway with public rights of way and a property or land and where crossing that land or laying services beneath that land could represent a trespass on the part of the owner of the property cut off from the Highway by the ransom strip.
Freehold land typically encompasses all the land below and above it (divided vertically), which in practice means that standard freeholds do not cross or overlap. A flying freehold is a freehold property which overhangs or projects (flies) above or below an adjoining freehold property.
We have lived with the NPPF since 2012. Generally welcomed by the development industry, will the changes to the NPPF, now embodied in the 2018 framework, going to make a material difference in addressing housing delivery problems?
This update comments on the latest developments including the shortening of filing and payment window to 14 days from the effective date, what is a “major interest”?, bare trusts and first time buyer’s relief and the Supreme Court decision in Project Blue.
The significance of the NPPF was as much the fact that it put together in one place all of central government’s planning policies. It is not perfect, but some of those imperfections stem from the fact that voters are wedded to concepts such as the Green Belt which add to the problems of housing delivery in an environmentally sustainable manner.
Modular construction is a method of building in ‘module’ sections from an off-site facility. The prefabricated parts are transported to and constructed on site and the finished product is referred to as ‘prefab’ or, more recently, modular housing.