The strategic land market demands not only transactional expertise but a genuine understanding of what landowners, promoters and developers are actually trying to achieve. Our team has the breadth of experience and sector knowledge to advise you at every stage - from the first conversation about a site's potential right through to completion and the obligations that follow.
We advise across the full range of strategic land work - promotion and option agreements, conditional contracts, collaboration agreements, land pooling structures, overage arrangements and phased disposals - for residential, industrial, logistics and mixed-use development.
Our clients are private landowners, family and charitable estates, trustees, local authorities, government bodies, promoters and developers. Because we act on both sides of the public and private sector divide, we tend to know what every party to a transaction is thinking before they say it - not just the side we're sitting on. Our real estate and planning expertise covers the full complexity of strategic land work: section 106 agreements, development consent orders, infrastructure arrangements and compulsory purchase. But we think the tax and succession picture matters just as much. That's why our private client team is involved from the very start of every project, working alongside our real estate and planning lawyers to advise on trusts, succession planning, estate structuring, and inheritance and capital gains tax planning. Because getting that right early can fundamentally change how a deal is structured.
Whether you're thinking about how to structure a significant disposal years down the line, or working through a multi-party site assembly alongside planning and infrastructure negotiations, our teams work closely together from day one.
"The team at Browne Jacobson are experienced and knowledgeable. They act in our best interests all the time, give a strategic steer, and provide everything we need as an organisation."
Our strategic land practice covers the full range of transaction types, including:
Strategic land projects often have significant implications for the families and estates behind them - and those implications are best dealt with early, not at the end of a transaction. From financial and tax planning to the future succession of your business or estate, our private client team works closely with clients and other professionals to provide tailored advice that fits your wider objectives. The team is ranked first for private client work in the Midlands by both Chambers UK and the Legal 500, and all members are part of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP).
Their involvement in strategic land matters typically covers:
Whether you are a landowner considering your options, a promoter or developer working through a complex transaction, or a charity or landed estate looking to plan ahead of a significant disposal, we’re always happy to have a conversation.
Acting for a private landowner on a £1.8 million disposal of strategic development land through a conditional contract structure - conditional upon the grant of satisfactory planning permission - with our advice focused on maximising the client's immediate return whilst protecting their long-term interests in the retained estate. The transaction incorporates a carefully structured price adjustment mechanism linked to overage payments, ensuring the client participates in any uplift in development value achieved post-completion.
We advised on the strategic retention of a ransom strip, the negotiation of rights for the client to connect into the development access road, and the securing of an option to acquire the access corridor outright for the benefit of the retained land - preserving flexibility for future development opportunities. Gateshead's LLP acted for the purchaser.
Acting for Tilia Cross Keys Dev LLP on a £4 million conditional acquisition of a residential development site in Bovey Tracey, Devon - a strategically complex transaction involving three separate landowners represented by two different solicitors, requiring coordinated simultaneous negotiations across multiple parties. The deal was structured as a conditional contract, with completion contingent on satisfaction of a key planning condition and the successful assignment of copyright in the architectural plans annexed to the planning permission.
Our team negotiated a contract variation and coordinated the apportionment of the total purchase price across the three separate ownership interests. We also worked alongside our banking colleagues to produce a comprehensive Certificate of Title in Law Society standard form for the HSBC development finance, satisfying lender requirements alongside our client's commercial objectives. The transaction completed in December 2025.
Acting for Howard Farms on the phased sale of a 396-acre strategic development site on the Doncaster/Bassetlaw border to Mulberry Logistics Park Doncaster Limited, with the two completed phases realising approximately £25 million and delivering around 2.5 million square feet of logistics buildings - to be known as Mulberry Logistics Park. The site gives businesses direct access to the trunk road network linking Doncaster, Sheffield and Nottingham.
We advised Howard Farms on the initial conditional option agreements and sale of the first two phases, from January 2021 through to completion in July 2024. The phased structure, negotiated opposite Gowling WLG acting for the buyer, protected our client's interests across each stage whilst maximising overall disposal value. We continue to support Howard Farms on the third and final remaining phase of the development, currently on the market with agents Mather Jamie.
Acting as lead solicitors for Wheatcroft Properties Limited on a £34 million simultaneous multi-party sale of residential development land to BDW Trading Limited (Barratt Homes) at Phase 2 Cooks Lane, Wigston - one of the most complex residential development transactions in the region.
The deal required coordinating five separate landowners across four different law firms, with our team taking overall control of negotiations with Osborne Clarke (acting for Barratt Homes). We delivered a suite of 20+ transaction documents, including ten separate transfers covering both registered and unregistered land, a legal charge protecting deferred payments, change of use and open market overage provisions, an option agreement, and five declarations of trust governing ransom strip arrangements between the landowners. All documents were exchanged and completed simultaneously across all five ownership groups, within demanding timescales.
Following completion, we have continued to advise on the partial release of the charge and management of deferred payments as the contract requires.
"Browne Jacobson has an outstanding team of lawyers. They are very thorough, first class, and very commercially aware."
"The team are experts in this field, responsive and timely in all interactions with us. They are not only professional but friendly and put us at ease when discussing complex legal issues. The advice they give is grounded in legal knowledge but communicated in a clear and helpful style. I feel they care about us as a client."
"The team at Browne Jacobson are experienced and knowledgeable. They act in our best interests all the time, give a strategic steer, and provide everything we need as an organisation."
"BNG has significant implications, and genuine opportunities, for landowners and industries that occupy large areas of land over extended periods. The instinctive response to a new planning obligation may be to focus on burden. That approach risks missing a considerable opportunity."BNG restoration to revenue
"For developers and promoters active in the strategic land market, the Provision of Information (Contractual Control) (Registered Land) Regulations 2026 introduce mandatory disclosure obligations to a new digital register to be set up by the Land Registry, backed by criminal sanctions, that require immediate action."Actions for developers and promoters
The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill was introduced to Parliament on 11 May 2022. In this Bill, and in accordance with earlier reports, the government intends to replace section 106 agreements and the existing Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) with a new Infrastructure Levy.
