Melissa Starkings
- Experience
Melissa joined Birketts in 2013. She is a Senior Associate in our Residential Development Team. She has worked within the residential property sector since 2006 and now deals with a variety of residential development matters on behalf of Housing Associations, Local Authorities, and private Housebuilders with a specialist focus on Social Housing.
Within the Social Housing sector, Melissa specialises in:
- Purchasing and selling Section 106 allocated affordable housing, via golden brick agreements or land and build agreements to include advising on the s.106 Agreement and whether a Deed of Variation is required in connection with the mortgagee protection provisions
- Complex strategic land acquisitions, to include option agreements and conditional contracts
- Associated infrastructure agreements
- Stock securitization projects
- Grant funding agreements
- Nomination Agreements and the Local Connection Criteria and DPAs
- Post acquisition site set-up for disposals, which includes drafting inter-group Transfers, shared ownership leases, market transfers and transfers to nominated bodies.
Melissa regularly provides in-house training sessions to Housing Associations and Local Authority clients with legal updates and sharing ‘best practice’ know-how.
Melissa supervises a team of paralegals who act for Local Authorities and Housing Associations in connection with their Right to Buy, Right to Acquire, Shared Ownership Sales, Resales and Interim and Final Staircasings.
Melissa is a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing and is a Board Member at Norwich Housing Society, where she also sits on their sub-committee for the Property Management Division.
In Melissa’s free time she is a keen runner completing the Norwich Half Marathon in 2015 and taking part in the Great North Run in September 2016. Melissa also enjoys socialising with friends and family and travelling abroad.
Awards and Memberships
