Conveyancing Focus
How to be a successful commercial property lawyer There is more demand now for commercial conveyancers than any time in the last 10 years in my view. Many think that it is much the same as residential conveyancing, but though the basic land law and processes have to be the same, the devil is in the detail. Small differences can make a significant differences. After all, did you know that your DNA is 98% the same as a chimpanzee?! So what makes you a good commercial property lawyer? In my view, its a lot more than just knowing the law: 1. Know your clients, know the lingo, know the market rent and values in your area. Read the Estates Gazette news section, as well as the legal section. When a client says he is thinking of taking a 100,000 sg.ft. shed know he means a warehouse, not somewhere to store an extensive collection of garden equipment. 2.Get to know the active players in your local market. Commercial property clients are easy repeat business. Unlike residential clients, who are fickle and you only see every 5-7 years, good commercial property clients will give you lots of work for years. Price is not the main reason they will use you - it will be because you are a trusted adviser who can prevent them buying lemons, and be relied upon to give good legal and commercial advice. 3. Know the property beyond looking at the Land Registry entries. Look it up on Google Streetview or maps so you can see it is old, brand new, a small part of a large building or stand-alone. Has the agent forgotten to mention the car parking, service access, fire escape route. Is it appropriate that it should be a full repairing lease if it is part of an old industrial park? Be ready and wiling to visit the property with your client - invaluable with property development transactions. 4. Have close relationships with a selected number other related professionals who you can refer issues to and who will in return refer matters to you. For example if there is a planning issue you can say ‘have a chat with my friend Steve’ rather than referring them to a website or the local authority. The same goes for SDLT & other taxes, Capital Allowances, surveyors, and so on. 5. Understand your clients objectives and know the ‘deal buster’ points on a transaction - look into them first. Don't leave reporting to the formal ‘report on title’, and communicate with clients in the way that suits them, in language they understand. 6. Know you law and stay up to date with it. Suggesting title insurance is often not any solution at all, even if it is available. Commercial property is much more likely to be built on, altered, subdivided, redeveloped, have new access or services needs. Your client doesn’t want to buy a problem, and end up with an insurance claim, or litigation - he wants to use it now for his business.
7. Know your own abilities, and don’t risk dealing with things you aren’t comfortable with, or experienced in dealing with. If you have only ever dealt with commercial leases, resist the temptation of a big fee for dealing with a large property development agreement, with complex overage or tax provisions unless you have the support of a colleague experienced in this area. It is often a team effort, and timecosting turf wars don’t do you or the client any favours. 8.Have a decent library of resources to refer to, whether online like Practical Law or Lexis Nexis (or books-on-screen solutions). Read them or familiarise yourself with their practice notes and guidance before you have to. My personal essentials books are Gale on Easements, Restrictive Covenants - A Practical Guide by Andrew Francis), SDLT by Cox & Woolwich, Ross on Commercial Leases, Development Land, Overage and Clawback by Jessel, and Property Development by Gavin Le Chat. There is a lot of useful guidance in the Law Society’s Conveyancing Handbook too. 9. With Commercial Leases, in my view the key points involve having accurate plans and description defining the extent of the premises and rights of way/services accurately, ensuring repairing obligations are fair, getting clear break clauses, fair and flexible user clauses. Also making sure the the results of your enquiries and searches show that you can actually use the property for the uses permitted under the lease. So many clients try to avoid paying for searches without appreciating their importance, or pay lip service to dealing with the CPSE enquiries. 10. With Development work, in my experience, part of the problem is lack of communication. No one works off the same plans, to start with. The planning consultants work off one set of assumptions in relation to boundaries and constraints, the infrastructure people work on another set of assumptions and neither of them tie up with your report detailing the actual legal rights and obligations, or what passes for a boundary on the documentation. Getting on top of this at the beginning will save you a lot of problems later on. Also beware clients who won’t do the detail, want a broad brush, cutting corners approach - they usually come a cropper eventually. On the positive side I would totally recommend commercial property work as a satisfying and profitable area of work. But only if you make it so, and embrace its challenges and complexity. It is always changing and you will never stop learning….
Hannah Mackinlay LLB MA Solicitor www.propertylaw.guru SurreyLawyer 29