Charity Property

As part of our nationally recognised, top-tier Charity Sector Group, our Charity Property Team is recognised as a leader in this field and is involved in many of the most significant and highly publicised property transactions for charities and social enterprises, including:

• Major development and restoration projects;

• Large scale freehold and leasehold acquisitions and dispositions;

• Property portfolio management;

• Complex charity hive-offs;

• Complex uplift, overage and clawback arrangements;

• The property aspects charity or social enterprise mergers, acquisitions and restructuring;

• Advice to major grant funders to the sector; and

• Property financing and refinancing.

What we do

We understand and are involved daily in the technical legal requirements which relate specifically to Charity property ownership and transactions and other regulatory restrictions for a wide variety of charitable bodies and are able to apply our specialist expertise as part of the Charity Sector Group to help with the delivery of our clients’ missions. Being immersed in such work and working closely with the Charity Commission and other professionals within the sector enables us to recognise and empathise with what matters to charities and social enterprises, in relation to both their operational and investment property, which can cover a very wide variety of property types and related legal frameworks.

Our work has involved us in dealing with all manner of operational charity and trading subsidiary property. We also address all the property investment and management issues for charities and social enterprises with investment properties including portfolios containing residential, commercial and agricultural properties.

We have been closely involved in the development of law and regulation in the area, acting as a consultee to the Law Commission and Charity Commission and work closely with professional groups including the Charity Law Association, the Charities’ Property Association, the Ethical Property Federation and others in helping to ensure that developing law is drafted to take into account the specific requirements of the Charity Sector.

We have related specialist teams for Educational Property, Commercial Property, Construction and Private Investors.