Michelle is a highly experienced transactional property lawyer, trusted by her clients for her proactive, responsive approach and strong commercial focus. She works closely with each client to identify the commercial goals or investment strategy of each transaction to ensure she delivers the best value through focused, quality legal work.
She has broad experience assisting organisations with major projects and developments, acquisitions and disposals, complex leasing issues, management agreements and structuring advice. Michelle regularly advises property funds, the public sector and clients within the education and healthcare sector.
Michelle takes pride in developing lasting relationships with her clients. Combining this approach with her technical legal expertise ensures that she achieves desirable legal and commercial outcomes for her clients. She strongly believes in delivering high-quality legal advice in an efficient, cost-effective manner.
Our matter was taken care of by our solicitor, Michelle Summerville and her team. We value her advice and expertise enormously.
Development manager
Real estate investment company
Experience
Property Funds
- Acting for a multi asset open ended property fund on several transactions in NSW, Qld and Victoria including acquisition of sites, and all work on the development and leasing with national retail and commercial tenants through to the sale of the sites.
- Acting for a property fund on a structured fund-through, sale and leaseback transaction for an industrial site in Victoria. The deal required due diligence and involved several documents including a development agreement, co-owners agreement, contract for the acquisition of the site, an agreement for lease to dovetail with the construction contract and ultimately a lease to the tenant. The transaction structure was specially designed to ensure downside protection for the fund.
- Acting for a Singaporean investment house acquiring options to purchase over multiple adjacent sites in NSW, with different owners, for residential redevelopment. The matter involved due diligence on the sites and tenancies, review and negotiation of option deeds and contracts with interdependency clauses, exercise of the options and issues around extensions of time and completion.
- Acting for a property fund on the acquisition of a $64m+ single tenanted prime office building in the Sydney CBD fringe.
- Acting for a property fund on the sale of a residential subdivision in NSW including strategic guidance on the subdivision and easement issues, drafting an off the plan contract and overseeing the sale of each individual lot.
Development
- Acting for Property and Development NSW on the development of a site for mixed use purposes, including a healthcare facility, school and for residential apartments. This matter required a development agreement to deal with rezoning, subdivision, capital contributions, design and development of the new facility, rights of first refusal and restrictions on use together with licences and ancillary side deeds for construction and occupation.
- Acting for NSW Ports on the development of the LNG import facility at Port Kembla which included complex documentation with several stakeholders (both public and private companies).
- Acting for a private client on the redevelopment of an industrial asset in Tasmania, which includes numerous documents to align the leasing outcome across the adjacent sites, ensure commitment from the tenant for a purpose-built facility and ensuring alignment through the agreements for lease and construction contract.
Education
- Acting for University of New South Wales (UNSW) in relation to various subleases and licenses at the Health Translation Hub in Randwick.
- Advising the Department of Education in relation to the Coffs Harbour Education Campus which includes the department, TAFE and Southern Cross University.
Healthcare
- Acting for Australian Unity on the acquisition of a private hospital in NSW for $23m+.
- Acting for Health Infrastructure Corporation on the divestment of an environmentally sensitive site in Orange.
- Assisting Opal Aged Care on a complex development project with Stockland, which involved a long term lease from the Catholic Church, the design and construction of a new tower for the dual purpose of an aged care and retirement village and a long term lease for use on completion of the project.
Acquisitions and Disposals
- Acting for CorVal on the acquisition of two commercial prime office buildings in Newcastle from Dexus including a fulsome due diligence on all tenancies in the building. We identified critical gaps during due diligence and provided guidance and solutions to address the evolving leasing and capex issues to ensure the deal closed on time and in line with the investment strategy.
- Advising Spirax Sarco on the $23m+ sale of an industrial site in Blacktown including negotiating and documenting a leaseback arrangement to seamlessly facilitate the vendor's transition to a new purpose built facility.
- Acting for Kingsmede on the sale of a $60m commercial office building in North Sydney to an offshore investor. By combining a strong and decisive position with a strategic and solutions-driven approach, we successfully guided our client through critical last-minute challenges, including works to be completed, asbestos concerns, retention disputes and an accelerated settlement timeline, ultimately securing an outcome that aligned with the client's objective.
- Acting for a private client on the sale of an industrial asset in NSW for $25m+.
Social and Affordable Housing
- Acting for NSW Land and Housing Corporation on a development project involving demolition and construction of a mixed use development including residential, social and affordable housing.
- Assisting NSW Land and Housing Corporation on the strategic conversion of a number of long term leasehold interests at Millers Point to freehold, and the sale of those properties to existing tenants.
NSW Government
- Acting for Transport Asset Manager Entity of NSW on the strategic sale of land to National Intermodal Corporation (NIC) and a construction access deed with NIC regarding the construction of a major road and delivery of critical access infrastructure supporting the Sydney Trains operations.
- Acting for TAM on the redevelopment of vacant land to be used by the Rural Fire Service, which includes a complex works deed and long term lease.
- Acting for TAM and Transport for NSW in relation to a range of property matters, including project documents, commercial and industrial leasing, advice on title issues, easements and covenants, the sale of sites and redevelopment of commuter car parks.
Leasing
- Acting for a number of landlords (including Kingsmede, Sydney Airport, UNSW, Amplitel and NSW government agencies such as TfNSW, TAM, Reconstruction Authority, Place Management) on their diverse property portfolios, which include prime commercial office, industrial complexes, retail and Sydney Airport. This includes complex pre-commitment agreements, leasing documents and management agreements for the portfolio.
- Assisting a range of tenants to secure and manage their office, commercial or retail tenures including acting for McKinsey on a complex agreement for lease with an integrated fitout in a premium grade landmark building in the CBD.
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