We have more than 1,400 legal professionals working around the world. Our offices span across 19 cities in Canada, the UK, Continental Europe, Asia and the Middle East. There’s strength in our global presence – we embrace our differing cultures and work together as one team. We also understand the importance of investing in relationships that build knowledge and trust, while we provide legal advice that’s tailored to our clients’ world.

“Our people and distinct culture are what makes us different. We know this through client and employee feedback and this drives everything we do” Chris Oglethorpe, HR Director.

There are great opportunities for all our people to flourish. Through training and personal development they can grow in their role. Our people are the cornerstone of our success, across legal, business support and early talent. We care about their happiness and believe in the power of teamwork. We want them to feel empowered and recognise that by supporting, respecting and embracing everyone’s different contributions we achieve more.

Working flexibly, working fairly

Agile working offers people more freedom and flexibility in where, when, and how they work. As technology advances and our workforce becomes more diverse – and with clients often working to a 24/7 rhythm – having extra flexibility is key to helping us balance work and other commitments sensibly and productively.

By supporting people to choose where and when they get their work done, we help them to make a full and fair contribution to their team – while maintaining that all important work-life balance.

Where possible and depending on business needs, we will consider all flexible working options such as part-time working, job sharing, working from home and staggered hours. If in considering a role with Gowling WLG you favour flexibility in your working arrangements, please discuss this with the recruitment team in the early stages of the application process.

About the Team

Our Housing Development and Regeneration (‘HDR’) team, one of the top teams in the country, sits within the Real Estate Group, the third largest Real Estate practice in the UK.

The team comprises 9 partners and [36] lawyers, supported by a team of paralegals, advising on all aspects of residential development and investment, and housing led regeneration.  We act for house builders, mixed use developers, affordable housing providers, landowners (public and private) and investors in the residential sector.  The housing sector continues to be a key area of investment for the government, supported by opposition parties, and demographic demand requires a continuing increase in supply.  Our large, experienced team and excellent client base has a proven track record of resilience in the downturn and has enabled us to capitalise on housing sector growth.

Expertise:

This role is within the social housing development and investment part of HDR. The team’s areas of residential development expertise includes:

• acquisitions, disposals and exchanges of land and property;
• planning and infrastructure agreements;
• golden brick sale agreements  and development agreements;
• institutional investment in the residential sector;
• investor acquisitions and disposals of residential portfolios;
• funding agreements

Main purpose of the role:

To assist the more senior lawyers in the team with, and to handle their own workload of, all aspects of property transactions (including property development work) for clients and assist in the management and supervision of more junior members of the team. Clients include registered providers of social housing (not for profit and for profit) and investors of varying kinds in the social housing sector.

Main Duties and Responsibilities:

• Managing your own caseload, dealing with a range of matters from routine conveyancing transactions to more complex acquisitions, disposals and developments, and non-contentious housing management matters, and including due diligence, negotiating contracts, development agreements, leases and other property-related documents
• Giving residential and commercial landlord and tenant advice, both in writing and on the telephone.
• Supervision of more junior team members.
• Answering technical and client procedure queries from the rest of the team.
• Assisting with billing and other financial/relationship management of the clients.
• Assisting with business development opportunities, including attendance at relevant networking events and conferences, and preparation of tender documents.
• Assisting with the preparation and delivery of internal and client training.
• Dealing with ad hoc queries as part of a telephone ‘helpline’ facility available to clients.
• Any other reasonable duties delegated by any Partner, Senior Manager or Group Support Manager of the firm.

 Key Skills and Experience:

• Acting for housing associations, local authorities and developers on a broad spectrum of property transactions, including property development (commercial and residential), , landlord and tenant, regeneration projects and general property law.

Specifically:

• • development –  residential acquisitions from house builders at turnkey and golden brick stage, mixed-use development (including building agreements/agreements for lease), option agreements, overage provisions and infrastructure agreements
  • social housing specific matters – advising on grant agreements/funding, local authority nominations rights/agreements, and requirements of the Regulator of Social Housing
  • property due diligence – including certificates of title for properties to be used as security, and large scale due diligence on portfolio transactions

Specific social housing and/or residential experience is desirable but not essential. Good solid experience on a range of property acquisitions is key.

Equal Opportunities:

Gowling WLG is committed both to promoting equality and diversity in the firm and to Equal Opportunities in employment.  The firm believes in equality of opportunity regardless of race or racial group (including colour, nationality, ethnicity, national origins), religion or belief, age, disability, sexual orientation, sex, gender re-assignment and gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy, maternity and paternity.  This also includes any incidents of perceptive or associative discrimination and harassment.

At Gowling WLG we seek to attract and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures, to create an exciting and rewarding place to work.  Our aim is to fulfil everyone’s potential and together to achieve personal and business goals.

Standard hours of work are 9.30 am to 5.30 pm Monday to Friday with 1 hour for lunch (35 hours per week)

Work Locations

: 

Job

: Lawyers

Organisation

: Legal

Schedule

: Full-time

Employee status

: Regular