Gillian Roberts

Gillian has a wide range of experience acting for education sector clients ranging from schools and academies, through to FE colleges and Universities. She has advised education sector clients on property matters for more than 15 years.

• Acting for a local authority on a complex academy conversion involving several sites. The matter is particularly complex as the main site was constructed under a PFI project, is shared by more than one school, and not all of the schools are converting. It includes leisure facilities, community library and children’s centre. Gillian has worked collaboratively with the academy trust lawyer to create the property documents in a tight timeframe.
• Acting on preparation of standard template documents for a multi let innovation hub. The templates included short form lease, licence and virtual office documents and were designed to be able to be used by the client with minimum legal input.

• Acting for pension fund on the acquisition of a motor dealership by way of sale and leaseback. The acquisition needed to be completed in a tight timeframe as it was an off market deal and involved co-ordination of various practice sectors alongside negotiating the lease back documents. The acquisition needed to carefully balance the operation needs of the “tenant” motor dealer whilst protecting the investment which Gillian was able to do with her experience of leasehold negotiations. The acquisition was completed on time.
• Advising a local authority on the acquisition of a distribution depot for circa £22 million. The lease included a significant number of tenant friendly provisions. There were several issues linked to the lease being a renewal of a previous lease, which had not been properly considered at the time the lease had been put in place. For example, re-instatement of historic alterations. Gillian was able to provide guidance on the associated risks and investment concerns, so that the client was able to make a fully informed decision to proceed with the purchase.
• Advising a client on the leasehold aspects of the acquisition of a small industrial estate for future redevelopment for its own occupation. The estate is to be held as an investment short term and so needed to be reviewed and reported on as an investment (including analysis of service charge provisions). Gillian also had to consider and advise on the future redevelopment issues