Elle Dales qualified as a Solicitor in September 2017 and is a member of our agriculture and estates team, having joined the firm in January 2022.
Elle acts for landowners, estates, trustees, partnerships and agribusinesses on a wide range of rural property matters. She is regularly instructed on sales, acquisitions, tenancies and refinancing matters, often involving multi‑title landholdings and complex arrangements such as overage mechanisms.
Alongside core transactional work, Elle maintains a growing advisory practice relating to nature‑based agreements, diversification projects and natural capital work.
Elle enjoys the variety that her role as a lawyer working within the rural sector brings, reflective of the changing landscape and challenges that landowners and farmers face to continue to grow and thrive. She takes pride in combining technical advice with a practical approach, building long-standing and trusted relationships with her clients and supporting them in achieving their commercial goals.
Recent work highlights
Advising on sale with complex overage
Advising on a sale of an area with significant development potential, putting in place a complex overage agreement which would ensure our client were to benefit from future uplift in value, whether resulting from an eventual transfer or leasehold arrangements.
Advising on RSPB agreement relating to extensive quarry site
Advising the purchaser of a large quarry site on contractual arrangements with the RSPB in connection with ongoing restoration works and transferring tranches for wetland creation, as part of a nature reserve.
Advising major landed estate on flagship natural capital scheme
Advising the trustees of the Castle Howard Estate on entry into a habitat bank project with the Environment Bank covering an area of over 400 acres.
Experience & education
2022 Joined Birketts, promoted to Associate
2017 Qualified as a Solicitor, Mills & Reeve LLP
2015 Legal Practice Course, BPP University, Distinction
2014 First Class Honours in Law with Study in Continental Europe, University of Bristol
Areas of Expertise
Accreditations
Agricultural Law Association
Fellow
Country Land and Business Association
Member
UK Environmental Law Association
Member
