Almost every home sold in Tower Hamlets is a flat, and almost every flat is leasehold. That single fact shapes the work of property solicitors in Tower Hamlets more than anything else. On the Isle of Dogs and along the river at Wapping and Limehouse, buyers of new or nearly new flats need the service charge accounts, the building safety position and any cladding remediation checked before exchange, because a lender will refuse a block that cannot show the right certificates. In Stepney, Poplar and Bethnal Green, ex-council flats bought under Right to Buy carry their own risks: the council's major-works bills for roofs and lifts, and leases that have quietly dropped towards the length at which a mortgage becomes hard to find.
Lease extensions, collective purchase of the freehold and shared-ownership staircasing are therefore everyday work here, alongside the Victorian terraces of Bow and the streets around Victoria Park, which attract buyers from across London and the chains that come with them.
Renting is the other half of the job. Tower Hamlets has one of the largest private rented sectors in the capital, with the overcrowding that goes with it, and local solicitors act for tenants in disrepair and deposit claims and for landlords seeking possession. Since the county court at Bow closed, possession and disrepair cases from the borough are listed at county courts elsewhere in London.
Commercial work ranges from restaurant leases on Brick Lane and shop leases in Whitechapel and Roman Road to office space for the small companies that have followed the towers east. Conveyancing is nearly always fixed-fee; a written quote should show the searches and Land Registry fees separately.
The property firms serving Tower Hamlets appear below, verified firms at the top. Useful background: how conveyancing works, the legal costs of buying, the law on landlords and tenants and the general property solicitors page.
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