About

The five strong in-house legal team at Usbl, a major Norwegian real estate development company, is involved in every project from the acquisition, structuring, building and selling process and until a property is taken over by the buyers. This involvement on behalf of the company’s staff, not least its legal team, provides broad comprehension of the client’s commercial approach to real estate development. Due to this, the Usbl internal legal team is able to provide high quality legal advice within every sector of real estate law. Marianne Raa Bjaaland is the leader of the legal team, and has more than 20 years of experience with real estate law. She is a leading expert in structuring real estate, house cooperatives and property development. Moreover, she regularly advises on construction law and has broad experience from legislative work, and is often wanted in negotiations because of her outstanding ability to find practical solutions. She is also one of the author of the practical legal handbook “Eiendomsprosjekter”. Additionally, Atle Thorsell, a senior lawyer within the team, is highly valued for his extensive experience with large and complicated transactions. Said to always have an eye for the commercial interests of the client, he is involved with acquisition of new real estate and general property development. His practice also includes general contract law and disputes, enabling him to have a deep understanding of the client’s best interest. Thorsell has previously worked for the real estate group of law firm Arntzen de Besche as a senior lawyer. Recently, the team worked on the purchase of 34% of Neptune Properties, enabling Usbl to become the major shareholder in the company, as well as the acquisition of Nye Torshovbygg, Sandakerveien Oslo, a premises well situated at Torshov Oslo. It also worked on structuring several major real estate projects in Oslo and Lørenskog. Asked about her team, Bjaaland explains that: ‘Even though we have independent responsibility for the individual cases, we focus on sharing knowledge and supporting each other. This culture has evolved from common experience that if you want to build a sustainable environment based on expertise it is important that everyone feels that they are part of a team’.