Trowers & Hamlins LLP

Trowers & Hamlins LLP

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Ru Anwar

Ru Anwar

Ru has 17 years of commercial property and development expertise and has worked for both public and private sector clients, ranging from the NHS, local authorities and registered providers to international retail clients. She advises on a variety of matters, from general landlord and tenant matters to Development Agreements and restructuring of PFI schemes. She has also acted on a substantial number of development projects, with a particular specialism in dealing with registered providers in connection with golden brick and new build residential projects for social housing and also was the property lead on a number of multi million pound new build NHS schemes, acting for the NHS and Local Authorities. She has also been a lead advisor for large registered providers in relation to the acquisition of multi million pound development schemes for a mix of housing and commercial use.
Suzanne Benson

Suzanne Benson

Suzanne is the firm's national Head of Real Estate. Suzanne specialises in major projects (including strategic land, joint ventures and regeneration) and the delivery of residential and mixed use schemes. Suzanne specialises in the development of market stimulation products and home ownership initiatives and advises Homes England in relation to their range of grant funded homeownership products - including shared ownership and Help to Buy. Suzanne's work in this area has also led her to develop a specialism in FCA and Consumer Credit work and she co-authored the National Housing Federation Guide to Consumer Credit Authorisation for Registered Providers. Suzanne also heads up our Sales and Homeownership team who specialise in newbuild sales and leasehold management transactions for private developers, Registered Providers and Local Authorities.
Adam Berman

Adam Berman

Adam is a Managing Associate in Trowers & Hamlins' Dispute Resolution and Litigation Department who specialises in commercial litigation and contentious insolvency. Adam has considerable experience advising clients in both the public and private sectors across a broad range of commercial disputes, including complex contract disputes, professional negligence claims, breaches of directors' duties/restrictive covenants/confidence, and shareholder disputes. He also has specialist expertise in providing media and reputation management advice to companies, non-profit organisations (including charities), and high profile individuals in respect of defamation, privacy and data protection from both a claimant and defendant perspective and often on a very urgent basis.
Dan Butler

Dan Butler

Dan is a Partner in Litigation and Dispute Resolution, based in Trowers & Hamlins' Manchester.  Dan has significant experience in a range of commercial disputes, focusing on Restructuring and Insolvency and Procurement Challenges. Dan has experience of all insolvency situations (liquidation, administration, CVAs, bankruptcy) and long-standing relationships with insolvency practitioners at all the leading restructuring firms to assist clients when an insolvency event occurs. Examples of our work include advising in relation to the recent large retailer CVAs; assisting creditors and office holders in high value and complex insolvency estates, and search and seizure proceedings arising out of a multi-million pound fraud.
Melanie Comer

Melanie Comer

Melanie has over 23 years' social housing experience and specialises in property security work associated with large property portfolios used to secure housing finance transactions, including bonds and private placements as well as traditional bank lending. Melanie heads the Real Estate Finance Security team in our Manchester office, part of the largest specialist housing finance team in the UK. Melanie also leads on large scale property due diligence exercises associated with mergers and restructuring and other property portfolio transactions. Melanie works with all types of housing provider across the country on a wide variety of security matters and advises on strategy for funding and property work.
Vikki Cunliffe

Vikki Cunliffe

Vikki is a Senior Associate  in Trowers & Hamlins' Employment and Pensions team based in our Manchester office. Vikki has a broad advisory and contentious practice centred around providing pragmatic and business focussed solutions to employers. Many of Vikki’s clients operate in regulated sectors including real estate, charity, social care and education. Vikki supports clients through the full range of day-to-day sensitive employee relations issues, including absence and performance management, employment status, disciplinary and grievance cases and recruitment and retention. Vikki also has experience in drafting bespoke employment contracts and policies, drafting and negotiating COT3 and settlement agreements and advising on the enforcement of post-termination restrictive covenants. Vikki also works with clients on strategic projects including redundancy consultations, changes to terms and conditions, TUPE (tendering, insourcing and outsourcing) and provides support on corporate transactions including mergers, acquisitions and amalgamations. On the contentious side, Vikki is an experienced litigator and advises on complex employee exits and a large part of her work is handling and representing clients in Employment Tribunal claims ranging from unfair dismissal and unlawful deductions to discrimination, equal pay and whistleblowing. Vikki also has experience of handling breach of contract claims in the County Court.
Steve Dunseath

Steve Dunseath

Steve is a Partner in Trowers & Hamlins' Dispute Resolution and Litigation team based in Manchester and specialises in commercial dispute resolution.  He has very wide experience of resolving disputes for clients operating in both the private and public sectors. He has extensive experience of High Court litigation, Court of Appeal proceedings and International Arbitration. He is known for his pragmatic and commercial approach and has resolved many disputes by way of mediation and without prejudice negotiations.
Paul Ellaby

Paul Ellaby

Paul is a Partner in Trowers & Hamlins' Corporate department based in Manchester. Paul supports owners, managers and investors through every stage of a company's growth cycle. He has extensive experience of acquisitions and disposals, venture capital rounds, buy-ins and buy-outs and group reorganisations. He is a trusted adviser to several clients for whom he has acted for over a decade, across multiple acquisitions and divestments. His clients include owner managed businesses, management teams, large private companies, listed companies and investors. His breadth of experience and calmness is reassuring to clients in what can often be an unfamiliar and fraught process.
Joe Hawthorne

Joe Hawthorne

Joe is a Senior Associate based in Trowers & Hamlins' Manchester office. Joe advises on a broad range of commercial real estate transactions, acting for a range of clients including pension funds, central government departments, charities and private investors, with a particular emphasis on the care and education sectors. His experience includes leasehold asset management, freehold acquisitions and disposals and property finance. In addition, Joe regularly provides support in relation to the acquisition and disposal of large multi-let properties and on large-scale property financing / due diligence exercises.
Matthew Holbrook

Matthew Holbrook

Matthew is a Partner in Trowers & Hamlins' Manchester office and has over 15 years' experience in the real estate sector. Matthew has a wide range of experience in acting for clients from a variety of sectors. Matthew has led his team in the acquisitions of various property portfolios and the subsequent ongoing property management. Matthew has acted for a selection of funds on their portfolio management of shopping centres and office developments; a holiday park operator in a number of refinancing transactions and the ongoing portfolio management; a care home operator in the acquisitions and subsequent portfolio management of more than 250 properties; and a top ten licensed premises operator with respect to a wide variety of property law matters, including general portfolio management of around 350 premises. Matthew also has a depth of experience of acting for Registered Providers in relation to their acquisition and subsequent management of their commercial property assets, including the negotiation of office, shop and depot leases.
Joanne Judge

Joanne Judge

Jo has over 10 years' experience in real estate finance, and specialises in the property aspects of charging. Jo deals with high value property finance transactions, including bond issues, private placements and charging under security trust arrangements. Jo deals with large scale due diligence exercises to secure housing finance transactions. Jo prepares certificates of title, resolves title issues and deals with conditions precedent required under loan agreements. She also advises funders and borrowers in relation to a broad range of housing related matters, including due diligence exercises associated with mergers and restructuring transactions, section 106 agreements, nomination agreements, overage deeds and achieving uplift in values on stock transfer properties. Jo acts for funders taking security over real estate, including commercial units, residential portfolios and development sites in various sectors and development finance aspects of transactions, such as section 106 agreements, infrastructure agreements, release of rights to light, crane oversail agreements.
Victoria Robertson

Victoria Robertson

Victoria is a commercial and data law specialist and partner in Trowers & Hamlins' Commercial team. She focusses upon complex contracts and projects and in particular those involving data privacy issues. She has particular expertise in a wide range of technology agreements, regularly advising both providers and customers of IT services. Victoria advises clients within various sectors including technology, life sciences, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, education, charities and the public sector. She is vastly experienced in dealing with tricky contractual issues especially where personal data is involved and regularly advises clients in the private and public sectors upon data matters including regulatory compliance, international transfers, and innovative usage of personal data.
Louise Robinson

Louise Robinson

Louise has 15 years experience advising on a wide range of commercial property law. She advises a wide range of public sector bodies, in particular healthcare professionals and pharmacies, retail sector and private landowners and developers, as well as registered providers. Louise has experience in dealing with a full range of property matters ranging from stock rationalisations for RPs, acquisitions of sites for development by RPs, PFI projects and development site acquisitions and disposals, overage agreements, promotion agreements and all types of Landlord and Tenant and estate management issues.
Richard St John Williams

Richard St John Williams

Richard has over 20 years' experience in the real estate sector and has established himself as a trusted adviser to a range of private providers, local authorities and house builders, advising them on a range of complex structuring and/or projects. Specialising in corporate, charity, regulatory, PPP projects, partnerships and joint ventures, Richard is often called upon for his expertise in providing innovative structuring advice and solutions – helping his clients to navigate and deliver complex, and often high profile projects.
Tom Wainwright

Tom Wainwright

Tom has 15 years' experience in advising housing, education and health service clients on governance, corporate and contractual matters. Tom has particular expertise in structuring and constitutional matters, and he has considerable experience of helping to deliver group reorganisations, mergers, transfers of services, and establishment of special purpose vehicles to deliver joint venturing arrangements. Tom has advised on housing stock transfers, public/private projects, public service externalisations and restructuring initiatives. He is an expert in registered society law and advised Co-operatives UK on the impact of the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014. Tom advises many of our clients on consumer credit matters, helping them to audit their activities to determine which may be subject to FCA regulation, and undertaking the application work when FCA authorisation is required. He also advises clients on matters of ongoing compliance once FCA authorisation is obtained. In 2017 Tom revised and updated the National Housing.
Laura Welchew

Laura Welchew

Laura is a Partner in the Employment department based in Manchester. She specialises in all aspects of employment law acting for a wide range of public and private sector employers.  Laura takes pride in working as business partner to her HR clients, and really getting to know the ins and outs of each business and its commercial goals as an employer. Laura regularly acts for respondents in complex and valuable tribunal claims. Laura advises on all employee relations matters including disciplinary and grievance issues, sickness absence, capability issues, restructures and redundancies and employment contracts.