Sector focused property development, construction and finance advice

Whenever you are acquiring a care facility, it is essential to ensure you are buying a property with a good and marketable title.  This means that the property is free from major title defects and will be suitable as security for your bank and will be able to sell the property to a buyer in the future. Likewise if you are looking at selling your care facility and associated property, we can undertake an initial review of the title to your property to anticipate any potential issues that may exist within the title to your property and seek to find a solution or remedy to this issue in advance of any sell.  This will ultimately reduce the risk of increased costs or even a potentially failed sale.

If you are acquiring a lease of a care facility, it is essential that the lease terms are robust and fit for purpose.  You need to ensure that the permitted use provisions enable you to operate your business as you intend now and possibly in the future and that any changes to the use or physical structure of the property can be made without any undue restriction by the landlord.  If you are using the lease as security for any bank funding, your bank will require special provisions to be included in the lease to ensure the bank can also protect their interest in the lease.

If you wish to extend your existing premises, it is important that you get the title to your property reviewed before undertaking any works or incurring the cost of architects or other consultants.  It is possibly that the title to your property contains covenants which restrict your extension plans and it is important that these are carefully considered before significant time and money is spent.If you are successful in securing planning permission for your proposed works, it may be necessary for you to enter into planning agreements such as a Section 106 Agreement with the planning authority and your bank and we can advise you through this process. If you are appointing an architect or other professionals to advise you on the proposed development, our specialist construction team can advise you on the terms of these appointments to ensure they are acceptable to a potential funder of the project and to any future purchaser. The appointment of a contractor for the development is an essential step and again our construction team can advise you on every aspect of the building contract and associated documents to ensure your position is protected throughout the project and following its completion.

Our team has extensive experience of acting on retirement village developments for care operators, contractors, landowners, developers, tenants and funders.  As a result we are able to advise you on site acquisitions, legal set up of the development and disposal of the units and ongoing management issues.  These issues include advising retirement village operators on ‘event fees’ which continue to be the subject of much discussion in the sector.  This work has enabled us to develop our internal processes to ensure contract documentation for the sales is issued very quickly and progressed efficiently throughout the transaction.