Experience

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  Harmony Energy

  • Head Of Property (Legal)

    • Apr 2022 - Present

    As Harmony's in-house property solicitor, I work closely with a panel of external legal providers to support my colleagues across the business, from entering into Options for Leases for new potential project sites, to supporting financing of projects, and entering into the final property legal documents which underpin the operation of our active sites.

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  Sovereign Housing Association

  • Basingstoke, England, United Kingdom

  • Senior Property Lawyer (Solicitor - FTC)

    • Aug 2021 - Jan 2022
    • Basingstoke, England, United Kingdom

    I joined Sovereign in August 2021 to cover a colleague's maternity leave. I lead a team of one dispute resolution lawyer and two property legal advisors, assisting the wider business with a wide range of enquiries generated from our customers and third parties. I provide supervision and support to my team on matters as diverse as boundary enquiries, lease interpretation queries and housing disrepair complaints, working with colleagues in the property management department. I work collaboratively with colleagues within the wider legal team to manage external panel solicitors, and build relationships internally with departments dealing with property management, housing and asset management. I am leading my sub-team through a programme of reviewing and improving established processes and procedures, and the creating new procedures to deal with growing areas including new fibre broadband installations across our portfolio and requests for electric charging points from customers. I have put in place new levels of supervision and support and encourage my team to question the status quo, pushing through a level of discomfort to drive forward positive changes in how we work together and deliver advice to the business. It is a varied and challenging role as Sovereign pursues an ambitious corporate plan to become the housing provider of choice across the south of England.

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  Nationwide Building Society

  • Swindon, United Kingdom

  • Senior Legal Counsel (Solicitor - FTC)

    • Aug 2019 - Jun 2020
    • Swindon, United Kingdom

    Working within the Retail and Property team, I provide support to a number of business areas. I manage the external solicitors who act on Nationwide's own portfolio, ranging from lettings of premises above branch locations, to the acquisition of new branch locations and liaise closely with your in house surveyors and external agents. I also support our mortgage teams on the more complex enquiries that arise during new mortgage applications or where the Society is asked to give consent to changes during the life of a mortgage, where the situation falls outside guidance set out in the UK Finance Handbook. This 'front-line' exposure helps me understand the challenges faced by colleagues and conveyancers acting for out Members and helps inform suggestions to revise our internal policies and instructions to conveyancers. I also provide advice on matter where our mortgage has not been successfully registered, working with our internal specialist team, our internal negligence consultant and external solicitors to help resolve matters that often have been ongoing for many months. It is a fixed term position while a colleague is seconded to another team within Nationwide.

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  Unite Students

  • Bristol

  • Legal Counsel (Solicitor)

    • Nov 2018 - Jul 2019
    • Bristol

    In November 2018 I joined the in-house legal team at Unite Students, bringing my broad experience in property law to support the Head of Operations - Legal, and colleagues across the business. I deal with a wide range of issues including interpretation of existing tenancies and contracts, preparing new template documents and guidance notes, assisting the procurement team with negotiating new contracts and dealing with the variety of operational queries which arise from housing up to 50,000 students each year.

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  TLT LLP

  • Bristol, United Kingdom

  • Associate Solicitor - Clean Energy

    • May 2018 - Nov 2018
    • Bristol, United Kingdom

    I joined TLT’s nationally regarded Clean Energy team in May 2018 to assist with providing maternity leave cover. This was a challenging opportunity to bring together my previous extensive involvement in renewable energy projects from a landowner's perspective, and my experience with niche agricultural law, to support the team’s established specialists in renewable and clean energy acting for a variety of developers.

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  Mainstay Group Ltd

  • Worcester, United Kingdom

  • Head of Acquisitions - Legal

    • Jul 2017 - May 2018
    • Worcester, United Kingdom

    I worked in a small team which manages the acquisition of ground rent investments, primarily in residential developments, for an institutional investor. Providing input into the structure of new deals at heads of terms stage, through to problem solving site specific issues as they arise and working with other stakeholders in a project to see it through to a timely conclusion, I worked closely with external solicitors, solicitors and other specialist consultants.Mainstay is an industry leading residential and mixed-use property management company, with 40,000 units under full management, and an additional 75,000 units asset managed nationwide.

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  Lodders Solicitors LLP

  • Cheltenham

  • Associate Solicitor - Agriculture and Estates

    • Feb 2017 - Jun 2017
    • Cheltenham

    Providing project support to the well regarded Agricultural Property team in connection with a complex disposal of mutliple farms in Spring/Summer 2017 with a particular focus on negotiating surrender agreements with out-going farming tenants.

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  Thrings

  • United Kingdom
  • Law Practice
  • 200 - 300 Employee

  • Associate Solicitor

    • May 2012 - Sep 2015

    Bringing together my background in Commercial Property law and experience with Agricultural Property law, between 2010 to 2015 I developed a specialism in large scale pv solar farms, predominantly acting for farmers in granting options and lease, and also advising solar developers. Renewable energy has been an exciting new area of diversification for farmers. Working with landowners across the south, south-west and as far north as Lancashire I've acted on over 60 sites since 2010, with a high success rate for developed projects. My clients have been involved with constructed sites with a total installed capacity of around 110MW, with a further 140MW of sites under option. In addition to my work on solar farms, I acted for landowners on a range of renewable energy projects, from leasing roof-top space for solar panels to large scale, multi-turbine, wind farms. I also worked with an innovative regional developer who is looking to combine local community interest with commercial projects.I also dealt with freehold sales and purchases of agricultural land, property aspects of agri-business transactions, with experience acting for landlords (including pension schemes) and tenants in relation to agricultural tenancies. I was the lead solicitor in negotiating precedent pipeline easement documents in relation to a major mining/extraction project acting on behalf of two major landowner/agricultural organisations.

  • Solicitor

    • Mar 2006 - Apr 2012

    I originally joined Thrings' Commercial Property team in Bristol dealing with a broad spectrum of commercial property work.

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  Davies and Partners

  • Gloucester, United Kingdom

  • Trainee Solicitor

    • Sep 2004 - Mar 2006
    • Gloucester, United Kingdom