Our commercial expertise ranges from the sale and purchase of shops, pubs and restaurants and leases for individual businesses to acting for developers on multi-million pound site acquisitions and developments.
Some of the more recent development acquisitions have been on sites around the Duchy of Cornwall Poundbury development in Dorchester. These have involved the site acquisition negotiations with the Duchy and then sales of blocks of flats to social housing landlords, leases of commercial units and then sales of individual houses – tying the commercial and residential expertise together.
At the other end of the scale, leasing of individual units is tailored to the type of property. It may involve, for landlords, just using the Law Society Business Leases or, for tenants, advising only on the lease terms and important enquiries rather than a ‘full-blown’ investigation and acquisition report; in either case providing cost effective solutions controlling the risk in the transaction.
The ‘commercial’ approach also applies to investigations of:
• rights of way;
• enforceability of restrictive covenants; and
• boundary issues.
Armed with the right information, the aim is to avoid a formal ‘dispute’ and resolve any issues by negotiation.
Timing and Process
There is an outline of the conveyancing process on the residential conveyancing page. Practically the same steps have to be done in commercial sales and purchases, but there is rarely a chain and timing is usually more controlled between the parties.