The DFT roundtable video can be viewed in full on the recently refreshed DFT Roundtables page.

The event — which took place on 30th September at Watson Farley & Williams’ offices in London and was chaired by DFT editor Beth Fisher — was supported by Aldermore and Aurius from Apak, a Sopra Banking Software company.

John Carter, commercial director of commercial real estate at Aldermore, and Mark Elliott, business development manager at Aurius, explained how technology and other services can provide support during this time.

•   DFT roundtable: Strong QS relationships, communication and resistance to tech during the evolution of a scheme
•   DFT roundtable: Reliable lenders, changing student demands and planning benefits in the PBSA market
•   DFT roundtable: Aggressive business plans, development delays and managing expectations

John Carter, commercial director of commercial real estate at Aldermore

Mark Elliott, business development manager at Aurius
 

Two brokers and two developers were also in attendance to give their perspective on relationships after drawdown: Alice Williams, head of property finance at Pilot Fish; John McNamara, CEO and head of development funding at Focus Commercial; Deme Paliouras, director at Arco Developments; and Joshua McGuinness, development consultant at QDTS Construction.

They discussed how often lenders, brokers and developers should be communicating with each other after drawdown, why this impacts the release of tranches of funds, and how issues can be detected and mitigated early in the process.

The importance of a quality QS, what should happen between parties when the course of a scheme changes, and how efficient back-end systems can improve the overall process and limit re-requests of information also came under the spotlight.

In addition, Ranjeev Kumar, partner at Watson Farley & Williams, explained how legal documents needed to be “clear, concise and properly considered”.

Ranjeev Kumar, partner at Watson Farley & Williams 

The video can be viewed in full here.