The Real Estate and Construction sector remains а key area for а wide range of global and national businesses, from international and private investors to developers, building contractors and occupiers.

We recognise clients face a range of challenges and opportunities in the current economic climate including:-

• an increasingly global real estate investment market
• rising interest in different real estate asset classes – hotels, student accommodation, datacentres and private and affordable housing being just a few
• shortage of financing from traditional sources
• insolvency risk in relation to landlords, tenants and others in the real estate supply chain
• growing demand for а high quality built environment and continued focus on achieving sustainability.

CMS is well placed to service these needs through a network of over 50 offices across Europe. In the UK, our Team is based in five offices: London, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. We are and are seen by clients as one team in four locations. As a result of our vast experience we understand the real estate sector extremely well. This enables us to provide the top quality service for which we are renowned, at a competitive price.

We provide clients with practical, no nonsense business advice, creating innovative solutions and drawing on our considerable expertise from a diverse range of experience.

Our areas of expertise include:

• Investment – our team of over 70 lawyers is at the centre of our offering and has exceptional experience across the full range of investment sectors including some of the more specialist and newer asset classes.
• Development – commercial, residential or mixed use schemes, and including major urban regeneration projects and energy and infrastructure related projects.
• Construction – our top tier market-leading team has years of experience and is renowned for giving excellent commercial advice from project procurement and contract negotiation to avoiding and resolving disputes.
• Planning – our highly rated team focuses on some of the most complicated property development projects across a range of sectors and energy and infrastructure developments in the UK.
• Real Estate Dispute Resolution – a team which deals with the full scope of real estate disputes, and how to avoid them.
• Fund Structures – leading industry figure Melville Rodrigues leads this team and our growing expertise in this sector.
• Hotels – our team is continually recognised by the legal directories as the top team in Europe advising on some of the most high profile deals.
• Occupiers – our team advises a wide range of occupiers (including retailers, office occupiers and logistics companies) on real estate matters ranging from development, acquisition and disposal of headquarters buildings through to day to day property related issues.
• Joint ventures — our team have been involved in the establishing of a wide range of joint venture vehicles and collaboration agreements for real estate development projects and investment properties.
• Real Estate Insolvency — our real estate insolvency team led by Pranai Karia focuses on advising insolvency practitioners and businesses on a wide range of insolvency issues and restructuring.
• Environment – led by Paul Sheridan, known as one of the best environmental lawyers in the country, we have considerable depth in contentious and non-contentious work.
• Corporate and Tax – our teams work extensively on real estate transactions and have wide-ranging knowledge of joint venture structures and associated tax issues; and deal with off-shore structures in the Channel Islands and elsewhere.

Recent experience includes

• Targetfollow – Advising Deloitte in relation to the disposal of the Targetfollow portfolio
• RBS – Pub Portfolio – Acting for RBS on the sale to Heineken of 918 UK pubs
• Jarvis Hotels — Advising on the acquisition by Jupiter Hotels, a West Register/Patron JV, of 24 Jarvis Hotels.
• Peverel – Acting for RBS on the funding of Chamonix’s and Electro’s acquisition of the Peverel Group