Lesley has nearly 30 years' commercial property experience. She specialises in the following areas:
- Real estate investment and property portfolio management work
- Acting for commercial occupiers
- Property realisations for insolvency practitioners
- Freehold and leasehold broadcast and telecommunications sites
Specific experience includes
- Freehold and leasehold disposals, including sales of substantial multi-let commercial sites and a major complex portfolio sale comprising properties which had been subject to sale and leaseback/lease and leaseback with occupational leases for a public body.
- Negotiation of new and renewal leases for a variety of other clients both as landlord and as tenant. Recently these clients include pension funds, retailers, banks, electrical wholesalers and plumbing and heating merchants.
- Managing a team conducting bulk landlord and tenant work and freehold acquisitions for a client in the broadcasting and telecommunications industry.
- Property portfolio investment management work, including leases, underleases, surrenders and licences of various kinds, including acting on these matters for public authorities, banks and blue chip companies.
- Due diligence work in the context of corporate acquisitions, including a series of transactions involving the purchase of independent schools for a major client.
- Acting for insolvency practitioners in relation to disposals and general advice in relation to the property aspects of insolvency work.
- Acquisition of residential development sites, ancillary local authority agreements and leading a team dealing with the sales of the houses when built, including part exchange sales.
- Disposal of commercial development sites via the medium of a building lease then freehold transfer once development complete, including university site, petrol filling stations, local retail centres, industrial units, pubs and offices.
- Complex disposal (via building lease) and leaseback of multi-let offices and the adjacent multi-storey car park site with commitment for development.
- Troubleshooting correction of title defects in connection with solicitors’ negligence and mortgage possession claims for a major bank, including disposal of all kinds of properties involved in such cases, at auction and by private treaty.
Lesley qualified in 1980 and ran her own practice for 10 years, then joined Denton Wilde Sapte for 10 years. After two years at Irwin Mitchell, she became a partner at EMW Law in Milton Keynes. She joined Henmans as a partner in June 2008.
Lesley has served as a trustee on the board of several charities. She has been a member of the national organisation Women in Property since 2000 and is the founder and immediate past chair of the Thames Valley satellite branch. Lesley is also a member of the Charity Law Association.