“Clare is a pleasure to work with. She is knowledgeable, detailed, efficient and has digested and managed multiple moving parts on a complex £17.34m property refinance on our behalf, in a way that has earnt our complete trust.” Marcus Rooke, Managing Director, Kingscastle Limited.

Clare is a highly experienced Commercial Property partner, representing institutional investors, developers, and corporate occupiers, with a particular focus on the retail & leisure, logistics, and office sectors. She specialises in advising major corporate occupiers on all aspects of site acquisitions, disposals, and portfolio management across the UK.

Clare co-leads the Commercial Property team at Phillips Law and is recognised as one of Hampshire’s leading lawyers; she was a finalist for the “Lawyer of the Year 2024” award by the Hampshire Law Society.

She is praised by clients in the Legal 500 for being “brilliant at her job”, leading a “city-quality team” and providing “intelligent, practical, and commercially viable solutions”.

Clare’s expertise spans landlord and tenant matters, negotiating complex conditional lease agreements, handling high-value acquisitions and disposals of investment properties, including large portfolios, and providing strategic advice on property aspects of corporate M&A deals.

Clare joined Phillips as a legal director in 2021 from Stevens & Bolton in Guildford, having previously practised at international firms Olswang and Nabarro in London. She was made partner in May 2023.

Recent work highlights include:

• advising Mactaggart Family & Partners and Longstock Capital Limited on a multi-million-pound lease with The Automobile Association for their new UK headquarters at Plant, Basingstoke. Plant, previously called Mountbatten House, is an iconic Grade II listed building in Hampshire;
• advising Mactaggart Family & Partners and Longstock Capital Limited on all further lettings at Plant including the lease of the café premises to The Yard Plant and the gym studio to the SRX Club;
• advising Kingscastle Limited, a sophisticated corporate investor, on a £17.34M refinancing of its portfolio of over 75 mixed-use properties located across the UK;
• advising renewable furniture design company Nordic Design House Limited on the acquisition of their new UK showroom in Clerkenwell, London;
• advising a large pharmaceutical company client on all property aspects of a £10M acquisition of distressed assets including the freehold purchase of a laboratory site for £4.9M;
• advising a well-known restaurant chain on its high value site acquisitions as part of an accelerated UK expansion and managing its portfolio requirements; and
• acting for CRE and construction consultancy clients on their prime lettings of new head office space in central London.