Pete spent his formative years acting exclusively for developers. He is an expert in both land and commercial property transactions and has a wide range of experience in acting for developers, landlords, entrepreneurs, pension funds and SMEs.
Click here for Pete's profile on the Excello website.
Can you tell us a bit about your background, and your role at Excello
I’ve been with Excello for more than 5 years now, and I’m a commercial property solicitor who specialises particularly in development, banking and landlord and tenant transactions.
What has been the most memorable piece of work you have been involved in?
A sale of a development site whereby a complex title together with planning and highway issues made the sale contract rather tricky with many conditions but ultimately, produced a great outcome with both my client, the Seller happy with the sale proceeding and the Buyer being happy with an unencumbered freehold title enabling them to carry on development over the entirety of land, part of which despite owned by my client was previously dedicated as public highway.
How’s business at the moment?
Perhaps surprisingly, I am extremely busy. Clearly, retail is very tough but there’s a will to get deals done by both landlords and tenants and I am seeing existing leases being re-structured with rent incentives in return for giving up breaks and/or taking longer terms being agreed.
In the Covid19 era, what are the main challenges you face?
The challenges for my role are not overly difficult to overcome as working from home coupled with video conferencing makes day to day work little different. I do consider expanding the team will be difficult with both employers and employees nervous about the future and training will be difficult as it’s easier undertaken in person. The challenges for my clients in both retail with social distancing and pubs/restaurants still closed and consumer confidence being low will be very difficult. In construction too with getting developments completed with build completion dates still to achieve with a backdrop of shortage in labour and materials making it an extremely challenging time for them.
What opportunities can you see?
Excello operate a fully agile business structure with systems and processes firmly established and over a decade of expertise in this regard and so can carry out any commercial instruction with ease with all our systems already in place. I can work from anywhere and am used to carrying out work when my clients require so it is no different in that respect. However, many firms I can see will struggle with what is not the norm for them, be it delegating / supervising work or processing accounts and distributing post when at Excello, as I say, we have been set up and running this this way nationally for over a decade. As such, it is simply work as usual and so we continue to hit the ground running when others will undoubtedly find this a huge culture shift and adaptation shall be difficult for them
How have you found lockdown?
I have felt rather selfish as from a personal point of view, I have been extremely busy and enjoyed not commuting every day and obviously, the weather could not have been more glorious. My frustration was purely a personal one of not being able to play tennis., but now I can which is excellent news!
How have you kept in touch with colleagues?
By phone call usually although we do have video conferencing for catching up.
What about clients?
Email and phone which is no different from usual particularly since I have repeat business from long standing clients. With new clients, I have always preferred face to face meetings but these will need to be done via video link which will take a bit of getting used to.
What do you think the biggest change will be post lockdown?
I am concerned about consumer confidence slowing transactions down. From a practical perspective, I consider training people up and delegating tasks will be more difficult.
What’s the first thing you’ll do when lockdown is lifted?
Go to the pub and have a pint.
What restaurant you will visit?
Bacaro on Castle Street is always a great choice and I look forward to finishing off early on a Friday when lockdown is finished and having some tapas and a few drinks.
