Louise Ilhan

Expertise

Louise specialises in the acquisition of immediate and strategic land for the UK’s foremost housebuilders. Her work focuses on site acquisition through land options, conditional contracts and promotion and collaboration agreements.

Louise spent ten years post-qualification in private practice dealing with all areas of commercial property, advising a wide range of corporate retail, leisure, banking and investor clients on acquisitions and disposals and all aspects of landlord and tenant and estate management.

For the eight years prior to joining Gateley in 2018, Louise was in-house legal counsel at property developer Merepark and Mansion House Group in north Cheshire, where she was engaged in the full development cycle for mixed use and residential schemes. Working closely with colleagues in the various property development professions of planning, design and construction, her work covered initial site appraisal, advising on heads of terms, securing sites through options and conditional contracts, pre-lets to national brands, forward sales to investors, funding structures, disposals and ground rent sales.

Experience

1. Acting for a number of the top national housebuilders (including Bellway Homes, Taylor Wimpey, Bloor Homes, Keepmoat, Lovell and Story Homes) in the acquisition of sites in the North West, conditional on planning, including overage and security arrangements.
2. Acting for a national housebuilder on the acquisition of a mixed use development site with immediate sub-sale of part to a commercial developer, conditional on planning and containing complex overage arrangements. 
3. Advising on the division and disposal of a large site to a number of national housebuilders, entailing complex contractual arrangements for infrastructure, overage and deferred consideration, including HCA grant and bank funding.
4. Advising on the acquisition of a serviced site on a large multi-phase site in Wales, conditional on planning, complex enabling works arrangements and funding. 
5. Advising a top national housebuilder on the exchange of back to back strategic option agreements for an unallocated, greenbelt mixed use site.