James Hart

Career

Career

James is a leading member of Freeths’ Housebuilding & Strategic Land team, a national unit comprising over 80 lawyers focused on the housing sector. He also acts as regional head of Freeths’ Real Estate group in their Midlands offices, leading a combined team of over 120 working across all Real Estate sectors.

Having joined Freeths as a paralegal in 2000, trained and qualified with the firm in 2005 and been promoted to partner in 2013, James has a strong commitment to the exemplary values held by the firm, which were recognised in the firm’s accreditation as a B Corp in 2024. He strives to create an inclusive and collaborative environment for all clients, lawyers and staff, and is a member of the ESG sub-committee focused on reducing the firm’s impact upon the environment.

Personal

Outside work James is active in his local Scout group and is a keen cyclist which he enjoys with his two teenage sons.

Work Highlights

Work highlights

Advising a housebuilder client on the acquisition of a 600-unit former industrial site within an Enterprise Zone, and simultaneous subsale of over half the site to a registered provider for provision of social housing.

Advising a housebuilder consortium in relation to the first phase of a 6000-dwelling urban extension in the Midlands.

Acting for a national housebuilder in connection with its various options and contracts to assemble a holding in a 5500-dwelling urban extension in the West Midlands and in connection with complex consortium infrastructure delivery structures.

Advising landowners in the drafting and negotiation of a site-wide collaboration agreement unlocking a long-stalled development in Berkshire and facilitating a £37m sale to a plc housebuilder.

Advising a local authority on a development site comprising the conditional sale of land for c.750 units to a plc housebuilder, plus delivery of new landmark headquarters for the authority, a local centre, school and employment land alongside significant infrastructure and the safeguarding of future development land.

Industry Sector Expertise

James’s practice largely comprises complex, high-value development schemes, particularly long-term projects of strategic importance. He has particularly strong experience in assembling large-scale sites for development, and in successfully managing multiple stakeholders. Much of James’s project work is in the housebuilding sector where he has accumulated nearly 25 years’ experience acting for many of the country’s largest plc housebuilders as well as a range of smaller, privately-owned developers. He also has a reputation for his work in the public sector, having acted for many years for local authority clients particularly on housing-led regeneration projects. He also advisers a number of private landowners, estates and consortia in connection with their land promotion and development proposals.

James’s extensive experience in the housebuilding and strategic land sector means he is alert to the complexities arising on development schemes of any scale, including in connection with unusual title encumbrances, planning, taxation, public sector legislation and trusts. He is able to provide clients with holistic advice focusing upon the long-term success and ultimate outcomes of a project and works collaboratively to develop creative solutions tailored to each situation.