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4-Part Online Briefing

An Introduction to Property Development

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Session 1:         Wednesday, 6 October 2021  10.00-11.15

Getting Started – The Fundamentals

  • What the developer’s role is​
  • What cannot be delegated
  • Knowing a little about a lot of issues
  • The cost of using experts
  • Understanding the influences that must be juggled: occupier demand, site availability, planning constraints, finance, professional fees and construction costs, legal rights and obligations
  • Making decisions, the developer’s principal responsibility

Planning consent – The Key to Value Uplift but the Frustration of Most Developers

  • The concept of development
  • When is planning permission required?
  • Planning applications and appeals
  • Costs of pre-application consultation, applying and appealing
  • Financial and other enforceable agreements with and undertakings to local authorities
  • Planning officers and councillors; what they do and don’t do and how to interact with them
  • Environmental appraisals

Finding and Acquiring Sites

  • How sites are found. Where and how to look
  • Investigations before purchase
  • Outright acquisition, conditional contracts and options
  • How much to pay – residual valuations and comparable evidence
  • Local, district and regional plans. Monitoring changes to plans
  • Contamination risks
  • Land zoned for planning and white land
  • Uses and density considerations

Chairman: Dan Mitchell, Planning Partner, Barton Willmore
Speaker: Greg Dickson, Planning Director, Barton Willmore

 

Session 2:         Friday, 8 October 2021  10.00-11.15

The Development Team – Who are They?  What do They Actually Do?  How do you Manage Them?

  • Leadership – a vital ingredient, but who is to be the leader? 
  • Managing your team to deliver your project, not the last one they did
  • Management of stakeholders, especially the negative ones 
  • Reputation counts for nothing – track records do

Design and Construction

  • Who does what
  • The pre-site plan
  • Once-on-site management
  • What happens after practical completion
  • Alternative structures
  • Cost control
  • Monitoring and controlling progress
  • Dispute resolution
  • Defining completion
  • The involvement of funders and pre-let occupiers
  • Health and safety issues
  • Satisfying building regulators

Marketing/Letting/Sale 

  • The role of the agent
  • Exploring the options
  • Marketing
  • Branding
  • Phasing
  • Marketing tools
  • Marketing costs
  • Selecting agents; agreeing fees
  • Liaison with lawyers
  • Selling the completed development 

Chairman: Ian Gilbert, Planning Director, Barton Willmore
Speakers: 
Stephanie Marshall, Director, UK Cost Management Board – Digital Transformation Lead, Turner & Townsend
Ben Roberts, Development Consultant, Jansons

 

Session 3:         Wednesday, 13 October 2021  10.00-11.15

Valuation

  • Nature of valuation and why it is fundamental to property development – why, how and when should valuations be done? By whom?
  • Concept of residual valuation
  • Assembling and verifying essential data - rents and yields
    - construction costs
    - professional fees
    - finance charges
  • Checks and balances
    - setting the ‘right’ developer’s profit
    - scenario testing and sensitivity analysis
    - DCF
  • Market volatility and its effect
    - changes in interest rates
    - construction costs
    - cost of delays
    - void periods
    - changes in occupier demand and investment demand

Chairman: Dan Mitchell, Planning Partner, Barton Willmore
Speaker: Simon Wainwright, Managing Director, JPW Real Estate

 

Session 4:         Wednesday, 20 October 2021  10.00-11.15

The Legal Agreements

  • The purpose of legal documents 
  • The suite of agreements and the contractual matrix
  • How project insurance interacts with the legal documentation
  • Dealing with development and construction risk
  • Design and construct building contracts
  • Key issues on pre-let agreements

So, What Goes Wrong Most Often?  How to Avoid the Many Pitfalls.  The Art of Maximising Profits 

  • Most frequently made mistakes
  • How to spot the dangers – how to avoid them
  • How to maximise profits
  • Tax planning
  • How to minimise the risks

Financing Development

  • Common methods of funding development and some sources
  • ​Structuring the documentation required
  • Risk and reward in a joint venture partnership and the legal frameworks and documentation

Chairman: Dan Mitchell, Planning Partner, Barton Willmore
Speakers: 
Sophie Phillips, Senior Associate, UK Construction Group and Real Estate Group, Bird & Bird
Charlie White, Senior Associate, Real Estate Group, Bird & Bird