McCarthy & Stone
Senior Legal Counsel
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Senior Legal Counsel – Property & Development
About You
If you are an experienced property lawyer with deep expertise in residential development, land acquisition, and complex property transactions, this is an exciting opportunity to join our growing Legal & Compliance team at a pivotal point for the business.
As we strengthen the team to support our evolving strategy and growth ambitions, you will take a leading role in shaping our property legal strategy, influencing key development decisions, and enabling the Group’s future growth.
We are looking for a Senior Legal Counsel - Property & Development to join our Legal & Compliance team, providing strategic, commercially focused legal advice across our property, development, investment, and partnership activities.
Based in Bournemouth, the role offers hybrid working, with an expectation of spending 2-3 days per week in our Bournemouth office.
This is a broad and influential in-house role. You will provide legal leadership across the property lifecycle, from land acquisition and development through to disposal, investment, and strategic partnerships, working closely with senior stakeholders across Development, Land, Investment, Commercial, and Finance.
You will bring the commercial judgment to structure and negotiate complex transactions, balancing legal and regulatory risk with the wider objectives of the business. Alongside our core development activity, you will have the opportunity to support evolving areas including build-to-rent, affordable housing, institutional investment, and strategic partnerships.
You will also play an important role within the wider Legal & Compliance function, coaching and developing junior colleagues, sharing expertise, and helping to strengthen legal governance, transaction frameworks, and ways of working.
We will give you:
Financial:
- Competitive salary
- Annual Discretionary Bonus
- Company Pension Scheme
- Life Assurance
- Professional subscriptions paid for
Lifestyle, Health & Wellbeing:
- 24 days' holiday, rising to 28 days, plus Bank Holidays
- 2 fully paid volunteering days per year, supported by the McCarthy & Stone Foundation
- Private Healthcare
- Remote GP and 24/7 access to Employee Assistance Programme services, including counsellors and legal advisers
- Eyecare voucher
- Colleague Benefit Booklet with a range of discounts, offers, and promotions
- Family Friendly Policies
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Your Impact
As our Senior Legal Counsel - Property & Development, you will provide expert legal guidance across our property and development activities, supporting the effective structuring and delivery of transactions from acquisition through to disposal.
You will:
- Lead and advise on land acquisitions and disposals, option agreements, promotion agreements, conditional contracts, and other development transactions.
- Provide expert legal advice throughout the residential development lifecycle, identifying and managing risks relating to land, title, planning, infrastructure, rights, and covenants.
- Structure and negotiate complex development, investment, and partnership arrangements, including joint ventures, forward-funding, and forward-purchase transactions.
- Support strategic initiatives across build-to-rent, rental investment, affordable housing, and institutional partnerships, developing scalable and repeatable legal frameworks.
- Act as a trusted legal adviser to senior stakeholders across Development, Land, Investment, Commercial, and Finance, providing clear and commercially focused advice.
- Lead complex legal and commercial negotiations, balancing competing interests while protecting the Group's position and supporting commercial outcomes.
- Identify and manage material legal and regulatory risks, ensuring significant transactions operate within effective governance frameworks.
- Oversee plot sale transactions and support the effective management of the Group's corporate property and office lease portfolio.
- Manage external legal advisers, ensuring quality, effective delivery, and appropriate control of legal spend.
- Coach, mentor, and develop junior legal colleagues, strengthening technical capability, commercial judgment, and confidence across the team.
What We Are Looking For
You will be an experienced property lawyer who combines deep technical expertise with the commercial judgment, negotiation skills, and stakeholder capability required to operate as a senior in-house adviser.
You will bring:
- Qualification as a solicitor in England and Wales, with significant post-qualification experience in real estate, property, and development.
- Expert knowledge of land acquisition, residential development, disposals, and the wider property lifecycle.
- Strong experience leading and negotiating complex property and development transactions, with excellent commercial judgment.
- Experience structuring development, investment, or partnership arrangements, such as joint ventures, forward funding, or institutional investment transactions.
- The ability to identify and manage material legal and regulatory risk, embedding appropriate governance, precedents, and controls.
- The credibility to influence senior stakeholders and external partners, translating complex legal issues into clear, pragmatic, and commercially focused advice.
- Experience managing external legal advisers and complex legal workstreams.
- Experience coaching, mentoring, or developing junior legal colleagues and contributing to continuous improvement.
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Experience of build-to-rent, rental investment, affordable or social housing, institutional investment, or working with public sector bodies would be advantageous but is not essential.
Ready to Make an Impact?
Apply today and join our Legal & Compliance team in a senior role where your expertise will directly influence the delivery of our property and development strategy, shape strategic partnerships, and support the continued evolution of McCarthy & Stone.
About Us
As the UK’s leading developer and manager of retirement communities, we provide high-quality homes to exacting specifications. As of January 2026, McCarthy & Stone operates over 550 developments across the UK for more than 25,000 people.
We believe in championing the role, wellbeing, and happiness of older people in society. We help our customers have a better later life, so they feel more connected, recognized, and valued than ever. In late 2020, we launched the McCarthy & Stone Charitable Foundation to support local causes that help older people in need across Britain.
We are proud to have been certified as a Great Place to Work 2026 as well as making the Great Place to Work Wellbeing list!
At McCarthy & Stone, we celebrate diversity and promote equality and inclusion amongst our colleagues. We welcome applications from all, regardless of personal characteristics or background.
All applications will be reviewed as soon as they are received, and we hold the right to appoint before the closing date.
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