Sarah Darvell

Expertise

Sarah is a Partner in the Housing and Regeneration team at Capsticks, focussing primarily on security charging and large scale residential due diligence for housing associations.

Sarah project manages and leads the due diligence and charging of large portfolios of residential property assets for a range of financing transactions including bonds, private placements, loans and refinancing exercises as well as the due diligence for other large scale portfolio transactions.

Experience

Before joining Capsticks in November 2023, Sarah gained over 18 years of post-qualification experience specialising in this area in a top tier affordable housing finance team, as a trusted advisor for clients including for-profit and not-for-profit housing associations. Her extensive experience enables Sarah to pre-empt and resolve issues before they arise and to complete due diligence and place properties into charge quickly, smoothly and cost effectively.

Over her career, Sarah has placed into charge over 100,000 properties for housing association clients, with a total security value of over £4billion.

Sarah also helps housing association clients to:

• streamline charging and portfolio transactions, by combining her expertise in large scale residential due diligence with her passion for innovation, legal technology and process improvement;
• ensure that stock is placed into charge smoothly and at maximum value by leading rolling charge programmes and undertaking health checks to identify and resolve legal issues on properties before those properties are needed;
• release untapped value contained in properties already in charge by leading value uplift programmes;
• maximise property values at the point of purchase by reviewing the suitability of mortgagee exclusion clauses contained in planning agreements and other documents;
• meet investor and regulator expectations by providing detailed insights on assets and liability portfolio data contained in title registers and leases; and
• empower treasury and development teams to resolve issues relating to charging without lawyer input by delivering in-house training, speaking at seminars and writing articles published in Social Housing magazine.

Notable Projects

• Led the security aspects of the sector’s first ever ESG green bond.
• Led the security aspects of the then-largest ever own-name bond issue by a housing association.
• Led all the charging undertaken by a large for-profit housing association, including a majority of newly built stock not yet registered to either the association or its predecessor in title at the Land Registry.
• Advised several housing associations on rolling charging programmes that create a ready stream of properties which are always ready for use as security at their maximum value.

Qualified as a Solicitor

2005

Qualifications

• BSc (Hons) Politics, Bristol University (2000)
• Postgraduate Diploma in Law (2002)
• Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice (2003)