Whether handling commercial properties, mixed-use developments or the most exclusive super-prime residences, the very best property lawyers are trusted by HNW clients to provide expert guidance throughout the often lengthy, intricate, and high-stakes process of buying, building, and selling real estate.
These legal professionals work with individuals and businesses across the UK, the Middle East and other key international markets, offering specialist expertise tailored to the complexities of different jurisdictions.
The advisers selected for the Spear’s Property Lawyers Index 2025 demonstrate not only an extraordinary depth of knowledge but also an ability to navigate the evolving landscape of property law with skill and precision.
Explore the other rankings within the 2025 Spear’s Property Indices:
- Best property agents
- Best country specialists
- Best buying agents
- Best removals and shipping specialists
- Best property investment, finance, management & private office services
Property lawyers play a crucial role in addressing a wide range of legal issues, from planning and environmental law to lease extensions, refinancing and the intricacies of freehold enfranchisement. Their expertise also extends to ensuring that transactions are structured in the most tax-efficient way, helping clients mitigate potential liabilities while maximising financial advantages.
The best property lawyers are experts at identifying potential pitfalls before they become obstacles and proactively mitigating risks. Their ability to anticipate challenges, negotiate favourable terms and provide strategic legal counsel means that clients can proceed with confidence, knowing their best interests are always at the forefront.
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- Methodology
- Best property lawyers: some names to know
- Best property lawyers: the complete list
- Contact us
Methodology
Each year, the Spear’s Research Unit reassesses and refreshes its rankings of the leading providers in each sector by gathering data from and about the advisers and firms themselves, assessing submission forms, collating nominations, carrying out peer reviews, reviewing data from third-party sources, gathering references and recommendations, canvassing experts and conducting hundreds of interviews.
Advisers are evaluated using a proprietary scoring system that assigns different weightings to certain attributes. These scores feed directly into each new set of rankings in the Spear’s Indices. Each of these indices are published first online (according to the research calendar) and then in print. Print publication takes the form of the annual Spear’s 500 directory, which includes the top advisers in every index.
[See also: A guide to The Spear’s 500: Everything you need to know]
Each featured adviser is profiled on spears500.com. The site allows users to search the Spear’s database of more than 4,000 entities to find one (or more) to meet their specific requirements by filtering for specific attributes such as an adviser’s location, their specialist expertise and information about their client base.
Best property lawyers: Some of the top names to know
Emma Copestake
- Focus: Overseas clients
- Position: Partner, Payne Hicks Beach
- Ranking: Top Flight
Payne Hicks Beach partner Emma Copestake acts for HNWs, investors, developers, banks and institutions in complex and often multi-jurisdictional matters relating to residential property in London and beyond. She has particular expertise in niche areas of the law such as landlord and tenant matters, contentious and non-contentious enfranchisement/lease extensions and complex funding arrangements.
Copestake is known to have built long-standing relationships with many of her clients, some of whom have been with her for 25 years.
Read Emma Copestake’s full profile on Spears500.com
Stephen Messias
- Focus: Entrepreneurial clients
- Position: Director, Lawrence Stephens
- Ranking: Top Recommended
Stephen Messias began his career in 1988 at Finers (now Howard Kennedy), where he was swiftly made partner. After spending eight years at Finers, he decided to join forces with fellow partners Steven Bernstein and Lawrence Kelly to set up Lawrence Stephens.
He boasts more than three decades of knowledge and experience within the real estate sector, particularly where HNW-related transactions are involved. Messias’s clients come to him for his ‘shrewd commercial advice and ability to turn around transactions at pace’.
Read Stephen Messias’s full profile on Spears500.com
Elaine Dobson
- Focus: Statutory lease extensions and freehold claims
- Position: Partner and head of residential property, Taylor Wessing
- Ranking: Top Flight
Favoured by London’s jet set and international UHNWs, Taylor Wessing’s residential property group head Elaine Dobson advises on ‘all aspects’ of property law, including purchase and sale, refinancing, restructuring, tenancies and landlord and tenant matters.
She is highly experienced with statutory lease extensions and freehold claims, assisting clients ranging from HNWs to banks, investors and developers.
Read Elaine Dobson’s full profile on Spears500.com
Sarah Heritage
- Focus: High-value property disputes
- Position: Of Counsel
- Ranking: Recommended
Of counsel at Mishcon de Reya, Sarah Heritage is part of the firm’s real estate dispute resolution group.
Her practice focuses on matters related to commercial and high-value residential property including neighbour disputes, freehold management disputes, breaches of lease, possession of land and forfeiture, nuisance claims, boundary and party wall disputes and rent deposit disputes – alongside a host of other issues.
Read Sarah Heritage’s full profile on Spears500.com
Hugh Wigzell
- Focus: High-value conveyancing
- Position: Partner, Farrer & Co
- Ranking: Top Recommended
Hugh Wigzell, a partner at Farrer & Co who qualified as a solicitor in 2012, is a residential property specialist focused on high-value conveyancing, also acting for banks and borrowers in secured lending transactions.
Recent examples of his secured lending work include representing a private bank in the refinancing of a property valued at £45 million owned by an off-shore structure, securing a loan of £22.5 million.
Read Hugh Wigzell’s full profile on Spears500.com
Best property lawyers: the complete list
Click on the individual names to be directed to more detailed profiles on spears500.com. The table is ordered by ranking and then alphabetically.
Contact us
- To apply for inclusion in The Spear’s 500, complete our submission form.
- For further information about rankings, please email research@spearswms.com; we aim to respond to all queries within two working days.
- For commercial enquiries and questions relating to enhanced profiles, please contact Commercial Director Shady Elkholy: shady.elkholy@spearswms.com
- To keep up to date with the Spear’s 500, subscribe to our magazine, newsletter and follow Spear’s on Linkedin and Instagram.
- If you have missed calendar deadlines for our research cycles in 2025, you can still register your interest for updates about upcoming research and rankings.
- Click here to order a print copy of The Spear’s 500.
