How we help
Land & Property Advice
Housing Sight can provide planning reports on land for clients, offering advice on the potential of a property or an area of land for future development or change of use, taking in to account extant Local and National Planning Policy, the physical setting of the site and future development scenarios.
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Land and property owners can instruct Housing Sight directly or may be approached via letter following their land being identified in one of our studies as having future residential development potential. We will then advise the owners on the route to maximise the value of the land asset.
Land search & analysis
Including land assembly and collaboration - developers/promoters may instruct Housing Sight to search in a particular geographic area for properties or tracts of land which either have residential development planning approval or may be suitable for development at some point in the future.
Strategic land
Option/promotion agreement negotiation - Where land is identified as having future potential it will need to be promoted with the Local Planning Authority to lobby for its allocation for development in a future Local Plan. A developer will require a legal charge on the land to commit resources to the promotion. An option or promotion agreement is a legal agreement which ties the landowner to the developer over an agreed period of time (usually between 5-10 years).
An option will also include details of the price the developer will then be allowed to buy any land for following the grant of a relevant planning permission. A promotion agreement differs in that under this form of agreement once planning permission is approved the land is sold in the open market with the promoter taking an agreed share of the sale proceeds. Housing Sight can represent either the landowner or developer in agreeing Heads of Terms for such an agreement and then oversee the legal work to agreement completion.
Project Management
Including planning promotion, Housing Sight can manage the promotion of land for residential development once a legal agreement with a developer is completed or occasionally on the landowner’s behalf if he is willing to bear the costs of promotion himself without a developer partner.
DEVELOPMENT PROMOTION MONITORING
Includes reporting - where a developer signs a legal agreement with a landowner represented by Housing Sight we will monitor the promotion of the land by the developer and report to the landowner at regular intervals. We will ensure that the developer abides by the clauses of the legal agreement and seek approval from the landowner for any submissions to the Local Planning Authority that the promoter wishes to make.
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Option/promotion exercise & site delivery
As soon as planning permission is obtained an option/promotion agreement exercise or marketing clause will usually be triggered. Housing Sight will either protect the landowner’s interest in valuing the area of land the developer is allowed to purchase under an option agreement or will market the land to the highest external bidder on the open market reporting back to the Landowner and Promoter jointly as part of a promotion agreement. Housing Sight may be involved post planning on larger sites with infrastructure delivery and phased land sales/purchase.