This is the fourth part of my series of articles on creative contracts. If you haven’t already, please do read my previous three articles in this series. So far, I have written about:

• Option Agreements
• Joint Venture & Collaboration Agreements
• Assisted Sale Agreements
• Vendor Finance
• Overage Clauses or Agreements
• Conditional Contracts
• Promotion Agreements
• Exchange with Delayed Completion

If you haven’t read my previous articles on the above, then ensure you order the previous editions and catch up.

In this edition, I am writing about:

• Title Splitting
• Pre-Let Agreements
• Pre-Emption Agreements

Title Splitting & Development Site Assembly
Title splitting is when a freehold or leasehold title to a property is carved up into more than one freehold or leasehold titles, thus carving up the property into (usually) smaller parts. The most common types of transactions I have worked on include:

• Carving up a large plot of freehold land into smaller parcels of land, each with new freehold titles
• Splitting a block of flats (sitting on a freehold title) into leasehold titles - one per flat.
• Splitting a mixed use block (sitting on a long leasehold title) into leasehold titles - one per flat and a commercial unit.
• Carving up back-gardens of various houses into a single development scheme but which are consolidated into a single freehold title across all the plots of back-garden land. This is commonly referred to as land assembly or development site assembly.