Senior Manager - Legal - Dubai Holding Land Estates

Headline role:

• Providing legal support to various parts of the business on real estate matters, with a focus on transactional work including plot disposals and ancillary real estate agreements.

Reporting:

• Providing regular briefings and updates to the Director – Legal and Head of Legal on current legal real estate matters affecting the business. Contributing to business reporting functions (including the ExCom and EMC, as applicable).

Policies, procedures and processes:

• On-going development and streamlining of all real estate precedent documents, which include: Plot SPAs, Raw Land SPAs, Plot re-sale agreements, Plot Termination & Settlement Agreements, Amendment Agreements.
• On-going review of any policies in place to identify streamlining/ improvements to processes.

Strategic:

• Supporting the provision of strategic input and advice on "legacy" matters, including contributing to documents presented to DH senior management and attending calls with DH senior management to advise on legal queries relating to such matters.

Pre-contractual:

• Key involvement in negotiation of legal documents for various real estate transactions (in particular, disposals of raw land plots), including meeting with and taking instructions from key personnel involved in the negotiation of the commercial deal whilst ensuring that the business is aware of legal risks arising out of such negotiations and that any key legal risk issues are either mitigated in the documents and/or flagged to the business as applicable.

Contractual:

• Review/ drafting/ amendment of various agreements proposed to be entered into by the business, including NOCs, temporary license, Cost Share Agreements. Review of documents to be entered into with various Government authorities, including the RTA, DEWA, OM, DOA, Empower, Etisalat/DU. Reviewing letters to be issued by the business relating to plot sales, project registration, project cancellation.

Internal Governance:

• Providing information to the various Governance and Audit functions within the business regarding ongoing and/or historic legal matters. Ensuring that the business is directed to liaise with Governance on relevant matters.
• Legal and regulatory updates:
• Reviewing and being alert to legal developments in Dubai and the UAE and providing updates to the business on such developments, including input as to any required amendments to standard practices/procedures.

Other Roles:

• Legal input on the entire plot sales process, including: drafting, reviewing and negotiating Plot SPAs, Raw Land SPAs, MoUs, Option Agreements, Development Agreements and co-development arrangements; advising on master planning, land-use changes and parcel reconfiguration; liaising with the DLD, DDA/Trakhees, Dubai Municipality and other authorities to secure land registration, zoning/land-use changes, masterplan approvals and permits; advising on purchasers' development obligations, impact fees, public realm commitments and utility interface agreements, including servitudes/easements, rights-of-way and utility corridor documentation; and liaising with DHLE’s Finance and Sales teams about issues arising post SPA execution, including late payments, SPA termination requests, amicable settlement requests, plot re-sale requests and change in purchaser details.
• DHLE Legal advises on project structuring and on the preparation and review of governance documents, including Master Community Declarations, Building Management Statements, Development Control Regulations (DCRs), ARC approval frameworks and the governance of common areas and infrastructure, and on master community documentation, remediation and restructuring required by amendments to the JOPD Law.
• Revision of Governance Documents for all projects across the entire DHLE portfolio.