The Guildford office has expanded the Residential Development team with 16 new appointments to meet client requirements.

In recent months, the team has significantly widened its client base, seen a surge in received instructions, and increased its number of housebuilder panel appointments. As a result, Gateley Legal has expanded the team and is committed to investing in new talent to handle workload spanning across London, the South East, and out towards the South West.

Helen Rogers has been appointed as legal director. She joins the Southern set-up team and has more than 25 years of experience in handling both commercial and residential property matters. In her previous role, she headed up a residential development department for 12 years and will focus on supporting Gateley Legal’s regional and national housebuilder clients.

Chris Carr has joined the team as a senior associate. Over the last 18 years, his career has seen him work with a range of housebuilders and housing associations. Chris will be working on matters for Gateley Legal’s retirement living, affordable housing and housebuilder clients, as well as dealing with associated infrastructure agreements.

The Guildford Residential Development team is also investing in new talent with initiatives such as a framework promotion programme, designed for trainees through to senior conveyancers, and apprenticeship schemes.

These new appointments include part exchange solicitor Tahsin Rahman, paralegal Aiden Keay, plot conveyancers Laverne Townsend and Lilian Goodwin, paralegal apprentices Max Elliott and Kinga Jastrzebska, legal assistant Holly Cullen, administration assistant Eleanor Field, trainee plot conveyancers Samantha Parker, Navdeep Gill, Farah Fiaz, Brandon Hinchcliffe and Sajidah Islam.

Louise Paterson, partner at Gateley Legal in Guildford, said: “Due to consistently delivering outstanding service to clients, we’re receiving a high number of repeat instructions alongside work from new clients. To ensure that this workload is carried out to our high standards, we are expanding and investing in the team. Helen and Chris bring with them a wide range of experience in site set up”.

“As well as building up specialisms, we are investing heavily into the training of new talent to create a home-grown team that truly understands the needs of our developer clients. We are also expanding our service with additional tools such as advanced CRM system integration - which is an exciting development - and will be a great offering for our clients.”

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