NEGOTIATING a property deal at the same time as drafting the legal paperwork could lead to disaster, one of Manchester's top lawyers has warned.

More than 100 property professionals heard calls for the property industry to plan carefully before launching into ambitious regeneration schemes - or risk problems later.

The calls, by Pannone & Partners' Andrew Simpkin, came at the latest meeting of the M.E.N. Property Club.

Simpkin and colleague Roger Jackson told surveyors, contractors, developers and other property professionals that major schemes, like the £20m redevelopment of the Wythenshawe Forum, proved the need for careful preparation.

"The key ingredient was matching the differing criteria under which more than a dozen different particupants had to operate, and create a situation where bank funding could be obtained," Simpkin explained.

"This involved many separate deals - it was very complicated - but too often schemes like this fail because they don't start with the framework of the deal, work out to the structure and then, last of all, start working on the documents.

"To start with the documents instead is a receipe for disaster. You have to have things the right way round - like working out where the car is going before you start the engine."

Simpkin told the meeting that the Wythenshawe Forum is now regarded as a national pathfinder project. Tweet