Commercial Property for Beginners - A Boxset of 6 Essential Modules

Introduction

Presented by Hannah Mackinlay, this 6-part modular webinar series for commercial property support staff will look at the key concepts and provide practical advice for commercial property for paralegals, assistants and those new to commercial property.

Commercial property/real estate is one of the most interesting areas of work in a solicitor’s office as it can involve a diverse range of properties, from leases of industrial sites to residential and commercial development projects. Dealing with this type of work requires a wide-ranging knowledge of the law and practice. The clients are equally varied, and you will be often also deal with their professional team, such as surveyors, architects, planning consultants and accountants. Good Real Estate lawyers are often in high demand by firms dealing with commercial work.

Although this might sound daunting, if you have dealt with residential conveyancing you will recognise the basic concepts of the process of buying and selling land, but the documentation may be very different, and less standardised. This Box Set will introduce you to the difference and help you to start your journey to becoming an effective commercial conveyancer.

What You Will Learn

This webinar will cover the following:

Module 1 - What is Commercial Property?

Though similar to residential, there are key differences:

• Types of transaction involved - leases, purchases
• Different contract - key differences
• Different enquiries - The CPSE
• Searches
• More complex titles
• More tax issues - VAT, SDLT & Capital allowances
• More complex physical, planning and infrastructure issues

Module 2 - The Process

• AML
• Searches
• The CPSE enquiries
• Environmental & Climate Change issues
• Energy Performance Certificates and letting issues
• Exchange of Contracts - no chains!
• Completion
• Lenders - often separately represented - Certificates of Title
• Companies House registration

Module 3 - Planning Law & Infrastructure

The planning position is often more complex with commercial property.

• Basic structure of planning law
• New Labour NPPF favouring housebuilding
• S.106 Agreement & Community Infrastructure Levy
• Road and sewer adoption
• Sustainable Drainage requirements being introduced from 2024/5
• Enforcement of planning breaches - 10 year period
• The Use Classes & Permitted Development

Module 4 - Property Development

Much commercial property involves development of land for sale as dwellings or commercial office/industrial/ warehousing. This module will explain the basic concepts behind:

• Options
• Conditional Contracts
• Overage
• Land Promotion Agreements
• Auctions

Module 5 - Commercial Leases

• The Code for Commercial leases
• Structure of a rack rent lease
• The key issues - demised premises, rights granted, repairing obligations, insurance obligations, break clauses
• Green leases clauses and EPC/climate change issues
• Landlord's control over assignments and underletting
• Security of tenure

Module 6 - Tax Considerations

This module will give an overview of the key Tax issues, rarely applicable to residential property:

• VAT
• SDLT - what is 'non-wholly residential' or 'mixed use' property?
• Capital Allowances

This webinar was recorded on 13th November 2024

You can gain access to this webinar and 1,700+ others via the MBL Webinar Subscription. Please email webinarsubscription@mblseminars.com for more details.