Anthony Collins Solicitors has today launched a briefing for the housing association sector to overcome hurdles set by their lenders. The briefing is in response to a significant change in the lending climate for housing associations where lenders have looked to increase tenfold the margins they charge. In particular, the briefing outlines a groundbreaking ‘virtual group structure’ to allow housing associations to collaborate more widely without having to obtain the consent of their lenders.

Written by Peter Hubbard and John Walsh of Anthony Collins Solicitors, the briefing note outlines in detail day-to-day steps that housing associations can take to avoid getting into difficulties with their lenders. They have drawn their expertise from their funding mandates in the social housing sector in 2008 totalling over £945 million. The briefing also has contributions from Ian Parker, Director of Resources at Knowsley HT, Adrian Jolliffe of David Tolson Partnership and David Mairs of Tribal Treasury Services.

Much of the original thinking in the briefing surrounds the approach of setting up jointly owned service companies that can be used by independent housing associations to access support services. This new model has required careful tailoring to avoid breaching EU procurement rules and potential major conflicts of interests between Board Members of housing associations.

A copy of the briefing note is available free of charge to those involved in the social housing sector from Peter Hubbard.

Peter Hubbard was recently recognised as ‘Commercial Solicitor of the Year 2009’ by the Legal Awards organised by Birmingham Law Society. The award was in recognition of Peter leading a cross disciplinary social housing team of over 55 lawyers for the last four years and completing corporate commercial transactions throughout the UK in the last 12 months totalling £419 million.