Real Estate and Construction

Property and construction is one of Nockolds’ fundamental areas of expertise and is at the heart of much of the work that we carry out. 

Industry knowledge, up to date legal specialisms and a passion to work alongside our clients to complete transactions, resolve disputes and make projects come to life means that we offer clients an excellent, all round service. Combining our industry knowledge with a practical, cost-effective and collaborative approach, gives our clients the best possible experience and leads to their desired outcomes.

Our clients are varied and include developers, investors, landlords, tenants and funders. We pride ourselves on our long lasting relationships with our clients (which has led to our obtaining and retaining a Customer Service Excellence Award). We have grown with many of our commercial property clients including large housing developers and many household names. 

How can we help you?

To assist our clients, we regularly present on ‘hot topics’ or new areas of law to ensure that clients have all the tools they need to understand the legal impact of their key business decisions and  transactions. 

Our team combines specialist and hugely experienced lawyers from a range of disciplines in commercial property, residential property, property litigation, construction and employment. Our expertise includes specialist advice on:

• Purchase and sale agreements
• Commercial contracts
• Employment contracts and policies
• Enfranchisement
• Building Safety
• Construction
• Construction disputes
• Intellectual property: trademark registration and dispute resolution
• Planning and planning appeals
• Party Wall Act issues
• Rights to light and boundary issues
• Oversailing and easements
• Wayleaves and infrastructure agreements
• Overage and options
• Retirement living leases and acquisitions

Our expertise and range of pricing options ensure that Nockolds are able to provide the full range of advice and assistance needed, which is always tailored to each client’s needs and budget. This means our clients are able to control and, where necessary limit, their legal spend and to make sure that our advice and assistance always represent good value.

Our Experience

As well as regularly acting on residential and commercial sales, purchases and lettings and dealing with commercial and residential possessions, some of the work we have done recently includes:

• Acting for a Landlord client to get a Local Authority to withdraw an Improvement Notice, concerning remediation works covered by the Building Safety Act 2022
• Acting on behalf of the owners of 14 flats in a building in Canary Wharf who wanted to collectively acquire the freehold of their building from their landlord. We successfully assisted with this ensuring that the flat owners’ liability for costs was limited as far as possible and that all key statutory dates and processes were completed to bring about the purchase of the freehold for the flat owners.
• Acting for a charity who owned a mosque and had a complex legal history.  The ownership of the mosque was challenged but we were able to successfully secure the ownership of the property
• Successfully injuncting a neighbour after they blocked our clients right of way and ultimately getting the blockage removed
• Acting for an investor of a residential building, who purchased the building to carry out a rooftop development, in order to help him prevent the flat owners from collectively acquiring the freehold
• Advising a developer in defending an Employment Tribunal claim for unfair dismissal. Reviewing all relevant paperwork, drafting Response to the Claim and assisting all the way through to a successful Hearing with all claims being rejected.
• Acting for a property developer in enforcing the confidentiality covenants within their contract to prevent a former employee from taking critical business data to their new employer.
• Successfully negotiating the exit of a senior executive of a property developer, ensuring a fair departure and working closely with the client’s PR Team to minimise negative publicity.