Social housing

Partner, Head of social housing

David is a real estate lawyer, and Living Sector specialist, with extensive experience of acting for developers, end users, investors and funders. With a particular focus on residential development, housing and regeneration work, he advises on acquisitions, development and disposals, including site assembly, pre-lets, strategic and immediate use options and complex conditional contracts with overage, planning and development obligations, on both immediate take and major strategic land schemes. As national lead of Shoosmiths’ Affordable Housing team, David works with specialists throughout the firm to advise Registered Providers, developers and funders on all aspects of affordable housing, helping clients to manage risk in a complex regulatory and funding environment. His recent experience includes advising: • a regional local authority on a series of residential development acquisitions; • a major regional house builder on a programme of strategic land options and regears to deliver their development pipeline, including single-take schemes, phased drawdown sites, and hybrid option-promotion agreements; • various commercial lenders on a range of asset management and lending instructions to registered providers, including portfolio charging and review work; • a registered provider on the negotiation and regearing of a phased drawdown development agreement for more than 130 units, including the eventual termination of the agreement post-long stop date with recovery of deposit monies; • a registered provider on the acquisition of mixed-tenure affordable plots within a larger development of their land including secured development obligations and open market sales overage provisions; • a registered provider on the drafting of an innovative tenure structure based on traditional shared ownership leases, allowing them to release stock into the market for sale while mitigating carrying costs for void and short-term leases.

ExperienceDaniel is a partner in the Housing Management team. He has acted for Registered Providers, local authorities and ALMOs for over 25 years. He is described by Chambers & Partners as “one of the leading lights in social housing”.ExpertiseDaniel is known for his expertise in dealing with housing management, especially anti-social behaviour, leasehold and shared ownership. He is renowned for his clear and decisive advice. Daniel is highly regarded for his entertaining and practical training sessions and his public speaking.Notable projectsDaniel has successfully represented clients in many of the leading Housing cases in the Court of Appeal including Poplar HARCA v Byrne and West Kent Housing v Haycraft

Partner

Legal Director