Commercial Manager

GetGround; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 55,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

GetGround is recruiting a Legal & Commercial Manager for maternity cover, based in central Manchester. The role requires the candidate to be in the office three days a week with two days work from home.

The successful candidate will supervise partner due diligence, development due diligence, and legal contracts, ensuring alignment between signed agreements and the real estate schemes. The role sits between Development, Progression, Sales and Marketing and requires cross-functional collaboration.

Qualifications

• A mix of sales and legal experience in UK residential property, development or construction, or equivalent hands-on DD and contract review experience.
• Experience with reservation agreements, deposit protection, exchange and completion processes.
• Ability to read leases and build contracts with a clear view on risk.
• Comfortable running AML and company director checks.

Responsibilities

• Partner due diligence: verify development team, land ownership, planning permission and funder evidence.
• Development due diligence: lease details, build schedule, warranties, service charges and deposits.
• Legal and contracts: review contracts and leases, onboarding of partners, client solicitors.
• Pre-development: market research, pricing prep, attend meetings in person.
• Launch and ongoing: support client assets, tender docs, marketing input, reports, after-sales coordination.
• Completion: pre-completion prep, valuations, handover to completions.

Skills

Sales experience

Legal experience

UK residential property

Development/Construction

Due diligence & contracts

AML checks

HubSpot (CRM)

Tools

HubSpot

Job description

Legal & Commercial Manager (Maternity leave cover), based in central Manchester.

Note - this role requires you to be in the office 3 days per week, with 2 days work from home.

We source, structure and launch off-plan developments with developer partners, then sell them to a direct investor base and agent network. The commercial side of that is well covered. The legal and due diligence side currently sits with two senior people alongside everything else, which means partner vetting and contract review compete for time with deal-making.

This role owns that work end to end. You will prove a development partner is who they say they are and can deliver, get the contractual position right before we go to market, and stay with the scheme through launch, exchange and completion. You will also sit between Development, Progression, Sales and Marketing, making sure what we have signed and what we are selling match.

What you will do

Partner due diligence

• Verify the development team (developer, architect, contractor)
• Check proof of land ownership, planning permission, proof of funder and deposit protection
• Confirm the freeholder and any differentiating SPV details
• Investigate SPV directors for adverse reports or ongoing legal proceedings
• Review financial statements and assess whether a partner can actually deliver
• Run AML checks on all development partners

Development due diligence

• Lease details, construction schedule, short stop and long stop dates
• Build and construction warranty documentation
• Service charge estimates, confirmation of no ground rent, penalties for late completion
• How and where funds are held, with minimum 10% deposit protection
• How the land was purchased, and whether any third party holds a charge over it
• Cross-reference the scheme against current legislation, including space standards

Legal and contracts

• Review draft contracts and leases
• Legal onboarding of new development partners
• Internal agency and development agreements
• Panel solicitors and enquiries, onboarding client solicitors with Progression and flagging issues early

Pre-development

• Meeting prep and DD ahead of developer meetings, including market research on the location and their stock
• Preparatory work on pricing and the exit plan for a new partner
• Attend first developer and partner meetings in person
• Make sure notes are taken and follow-ups tracked

Launch and ongoing

• Contribute to client-facing assets (CGIs, brochures, floorplans) and check claims are contractually supportable
• Support tender documents: sales velocity, sales proposals, marketing proposals
• Coordinate with Marketing, Growth and Sales on launch activity and campaign feedback
• Produce developer account management documents and quarterly developer and marketing reports
• Coordinate and attend after-sales meetings with developers
• Track exchange and conveyancing: average deal length, developer satisfaction, progression blockers
• Chase developers on overdue invoices

Completion

• Pre-completion prep with Progression, 3 to 6 months out
• Confirm when valuations begin with Progression and the developer
• Prepare valuation documents and reports for valuers
• Hand over to Completions as mortgage and client management begins

What we are looking for

Essential

• A mix of sales and legal experience in UK residential property, development or construction, or equivalent hands‑on DD and contract review experience
• Practical understanding of off‑plan sales: reservation agreements, deposit protection, exchange, long stop dates, and what goes wrong between exchange and completion
• Able to read a lease, a build contract and a set of accounts and form a clear view on risk
• Comfortable running AML and company director checks, and knowing when to upscale
• Clear written work that a commercial audience will read and act on
• Genuinely cross‑functional, and comfortable holding a line with a sales team that wants to launch on Friday
• Organised enough to own document control across multiple live schemes without being chased

Desirable

• Experience with new‑build warranty providers, SPV structures and development funding
• Exposure to investor‑facing or agent‑distributed property sales
• CRM discipline, ideally HubSpot

What we are building:

The first end‑to‑end real estate investment offering - making the dream of owning real estate more accessible to everyone globally.

Diversity & inclusion at GetGround:

We encourage applications from all sections of society and we believe in the criticality of an inclusive culture. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, citizenship, marital, domestic or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other basis as protected by law.

• 42% of our employees identify as female or non‑specified, 58% as male
• 22 nationalities represented across offices in 5 countries
• Our work on Design Accessibility
• Inclusion is at the heart of our culture - we celebrate and reflect on key D&I and cultural events such as: Black History Month, International Women's Day and Pride

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