On-Demand Content

Session 1:        

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:         

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:        

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:        

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