Our lawyers offer a full range of services in areas including acquisitions and disposals, construction law, financing, commercial real estate, land use, planning and development and leasing.
Real estate has emerged as an attractive long-term investment for investors seeking diversification and stable yields within an uncertain economy. These investors now have needs that transcend borders resulting in the emergence of a global real estate industry.
Our clients benefit from our significant experience in orchestrating complex, long-term projects that involve drafting documentation, facilitating negotiations, navigating legal and regulatory issues and, when necessary, litigating on their behalf.
The successful completion of any construction project depends on the quality of the project documents and ensuring that the project is delivered to the required standard, on budget and on time.
Our lawyers are experienced in all sectors of the construction and engineering industry including energy, infrastructure and development.
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Obtaining consent for your project can be a minefield of political pressure and legal risk. Our focus is always on helping our clients to successfully negotiate that minefield efficiently and effectively.
Our lawyers act for both the private and public sectors, including developers, infrastructure providers, government departments and local authorities. Our clients trust us to lead their most politically sensitive and legally contentious projects.
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An effective real estate strategy must be integrated with business operations. It must enhance flexibility while diminishing cost and risk and, where appropriate, release capital for the business.
Our lawyers' knowledge of our clients’ businesses as well as the underlying legal issues they face is key to our advice to any organization which needs to buy, sell, manage or lease land or buildings.
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Our lawyers' experience guiding commercial development projects gives our clients a competitive advantage. Clients seek us out because we deliver the full range of services necessary to conceive, implement and complete significant projects.
We have handled city center and urban redevelopment projects, multi-party air rights developments, office towers with parking and retail components, multi-phased mixed-use projects, mixed use resort properties and lifestyle center developments.
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Our finance lawyers advise both lenders and borrowers in finance transactions throughout the real estate industry.
Clients know they can rely on us at all stages of their real estate transactions, from the term sheet and structuring stage, through closing, tranching, syndication and securitization, administration, servicing and, if required, restructuring.
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Our lawyers represent clients for whom real estate is a core asset or an alternative investment and clients whose business operations have significant real estate needs.
We can advise in all areas of law including: structuring, financing; due diligence; acquisitions and disposals; property development; and leasing and facilities management.
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Contentious issues can arise in even the most carefully managed real estate portfolios. Our litigation lawyers have the market understanding to offer legal advice about those issues that reflect our clients' business needs.
We also advise in relation to both high value and complex transactional work and day-to-day portfolio management issues, ranging from covenant and/or rights disputes on city center development sites to landlord and tenant issues such as the enforcement of tenant repair obligations.
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Experience has included advising:
- In the development of a new commercial property development in Windhoek which has seen development exceeding N$2 billion.
- On some of the largest property base securitization transactions in Namibia.
- On the registration of servitudes.
- On the transfer of land. We boast of extensive experience of land transfers and registration in the deeds office inter alia with local authorities transfers, sectional title transfers, private party transfers, transfer of block erven, transfer of commercial properties and subdivision of land and township establishment.
- In the procurement of land. We boast of successfully assisting our clients in negotiations between our clients and specifically with the local authorities for the procurement of numerous land transactions and we continue to do so. Such successful procurement includes inter alia transactions of N$60 million with the local authorities. Other transactions include the negotiation with land owners on behalf of an investment property fund on the acquisition of land.
- With the registration and advising on notarial leases.
- On the registration of sectional titles. We have extensive knowledge and skill in the drafting, registration, and opening of the sectional title schemes, as well as the transfer of units and registration of sectional bonds. We are also involved in advising clients daily how to register a sectional title scheme. We meet from time to time with developers and advise them on the sectional title laws and procedures, as well as the procurement of finances from financial institutions.
- On the establishment of Township Development. We are often instructed by our developer clients to attend to advising, drafting and registration of the establishment of Township Development, as well as the registration of General Plans.
- On the transfer of agricultural land. We have also been instrumental in obtaining waivers for our clients with Ministry of Land and Resettlement, and subsequently attending to the registration of transfer of agricultural land to private persons, as well as to the Government of Namibia.
- On the registration of bonds and registerable notarial documents. We are instructed by the banks to play a supervisory role on their securities (mortgage bonds) registered over immovable property.
DLA Piper Africa achieves impressive results in the newly released 2020 edition of The Legal 500: Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA)edition
As the articles in this issue show, the world’s second largest continent may offer real opportunities to foreign investors in real estate.