Receivership tip | Does a Receiver need to be an expert in all types of property?

The nature of property receivership is to expect the unexpected. When we check our inbox in the morning, we never know what we will find.

Appointments this year have ranged from London mansions worth 10's of millions to a single residential investment in Cumberland worth less than half a percent of that, a shopping centre with a massive hole in the service charge account, freezing orders, proceeds of crime restraint, and everything in between.

Some of these are familiar situations we have dealt with, others less so. The common thread is that if we haven't handled a particular situation, we have probably worked on something very similar.

We have had a number of receivership appointments over agricultural properties, but almost always with development or alternative use potential.

The first time our Receivership & Recovery consultant, Ben Tobin, was offered a receivership appointment over a farm, which was intended to maintain its agricultural use, was in a remote area of West Wales. Funnily enough, our purely agricultural appointments have all been in Wales!

Ben called the lender to say that he had limited knowledge of agriculture, except that farms were usually green and brown. The lender wasn't bothered – his view was that Ben had a career worth of experience dealing with awkward, complicated and unusual situations with borrowers and their properties, which was more important in this case. Ben could call in for agricultural expertise when he needed it.

That's exactly what happened, and it taught us a lesson – there are rarely exact parallels, but there are always similar cases, and the key is always to find the right expert who can piece together the professionals needed to get the best outcome.

Obviously, the expert must have the technical knowledge relevant to the location, but equally important is a pragmatic approach, given that we rarely have full information and often can't engage in a long term process which might otherwise resolve the problem. It also helps if the client understands the receivership process with its demands and constraints.

Areas that we're not 'experts' in but have had to contend with include underground caverns, riparian fishing rights, fraud (both property and other), crime, professional misconduct, Grade I listed barns, stately homes, country hotels, Grade II listed parkland, arson, motor torpedo boat harbours and others. The fast learning curve Ben had with farms was finding himself responsible for livestock with no one looking after it - in that and all cases, we adapt and call in the experts.

If you should ever find yourself needing advice on any real estate asset with a complicated or unusual situation, please get in touch with our team for a chat.