Senior Real Estate Counsel

Dreamlab Cape Town; Cape Town; Hybrid; ZAR 863,000 - 1,034,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

13th Cheque

Parking Allowance

Job summary

Dreamlab – Group Legal in Cape Town seeks a Senior Real Estate Counsel to lead the real estate function for a fast-growing, multi-site hospitality and entertainment group. You will own commercial leasehold work, manage portfolio matters and coordinate with external counsel across jurisdictions.

Reporting to the Group General Counsel, you will build processes, drive high-quality drafting and provide practical, commercially focused advice to support expansion and site openings.

Qualifications

• 6-8 years post-qualification experience in real estate law (UK/US background preferred).
• Strong drafting skills with experience in commercial leasehold work (acquisitions, disposals, renewals, rent reviews).
• Commercially minded with ability to advise on business objectives and practical risk management.

Responsibilities

• Manage all real estate matters for the group across multiple sites and jurisdictions.
• Draft, review, negotiate and complete leases, licences, agreements for lease and related docs.
• Lead on lease renewals, rent reviews, break options, assignments and landlord-tenant matters.
• Coordinate external counsel and advisers, including cross-border matters.
• Support site acquisitions and openings for hospitality and entertainment venues.
• Develop internal precedents, playbooks, templates and processes for real estate.
• Collaborate with wider legal team on corporate, commercial, financing and regulatory workstreams.

Skills

Real estate law

Drafting excellence

Lease negotiations

Commercial awareness

Cross-border coordination

Job description

SENIOR REAL ESTATE COUNSEL

Dreamlab – Group Legal

Reporting into the Group General Counsel

Salary – circa R85,000 per month

Office-based or hybrid (at your election) working out of South Africa (Cape Town) Office

Company Introduction

Dreamlab is a diverse portfolio of experience companies operating across the UK and globally. The business invests in, supports and grows exciting business ventures across hospitality and entertainment, including (but not limited to) Michelin-starred chef restaurants, leading white-labelled F&B products, international catering offerings and exciting entertainment ventures.

Role Introduction

We're growing our Legal and Compliance team (currently 6) to support some exciting growth plans for the business into 2027 and beyond.

We're looking for an experienced and commercially astute real estate lawyer with first-class drafting skills, meticulous attention to detail and a deep understanding of leasehold and property transactions in the hospitality and entertainment sector. Reporting into the Group General Counsel, you'll take ownership of all real estate matters across the group, from securing new sites and negotiating leases and licences to managing our existing portfolio and the issues that arise across a fast-moving, multi-site operation. Property is central to how our businesses come to life, and you'll be trusted to lead on the legal workstreams that underpin the group's expansion. This is an excellent opportunity for a senior real estate lawyer looking to build and shape a real estate function from the ground up within an entrepreneurial in-house environment.

This is a commercial real estate and leasehold advisory role. It is not a conveyancing position and does not involve the transfer of immovable property, registration of title in the Deeds Office, or the other work traditionally carried out by admitted conveyancers in South Africa. Candidates whose experience is limited to traditional South African conveyancing practice are unlikely to be suited to this role.

What You'll Achieve

The role is subject to change and, like many in-house legal roles, you may be asked to support across all areas of law in many different jurisdictions. Your primary focus will be managing the delivery of the group's real estate matters through precise, high-quality drafting, strong negotiation and a sharp commercial understanding, with the opportunity to build broad experience across the wider legal function.

The role wouldn’t involve conveyancing or Deeds Office registration work; the real estate focus is on commercial leasehold and landlord and tenant matters described below.

• Managing all real estate matters for the group, including the acquisition, disposal, and management of the group's property portfolio across multiple sites and jurisdictions.
• Drafting, reviewing, negotiating and completing new leases, licences, agreements for lease, and related property documentation to a high standard of accuracy and precision, with a strong eye for commercial and operational impact.
• Leading on lease renewals, rent reviews, break options, assignments, sub-lettings, surrenders and variations across the existing portfolio, keeping the business ahead of key dates and obligations.
• Addressing changes and issues relating to the group's real estate portfolio, including dilapidations, service charge disputes, licences for alterations, planning and premises licensing interfaces, and landlord and tenant matters.
• Supporting site acquisitions and new openings for restaurants, bars and entertainment venues, as well as office spaces and other related use cases, coordinating heads of terms, due diligence, and completion mechanics to keep projects on track.
• Managing and instructing external counsel and specialist advisers (including conveyancers, planning and licensing lawyers, and surveyors) brought in to support relevant transactions, ensuring quality, value for money and timely delivery.
• Advising internal stakeholders on the property implications of fit-out works, development projects, and operational changes at group sites.
• Working alongside the wider legal team on the corporate, commercial, financing and regulatory workstreams that intersect with the group's real estate activity.
• Helping to develop and maintain internal legal processes, precedents, playbooks and templates for real estate matters, contributing to consistently high standards across the team.
• Contributing to the wider work of the legal team as the business grows, taking on increasing responsibility over time.

We want to build a world class legal offering that will be appreciated for our quality and integrity, as well as our legal and business advice. We will be true partners across the group and be trusted for our guidance so that our clients can in turn build on their potential to be the great businesses the group saw them to be when Dreamlab invested.

What You'll Have

Professional Excellence

• Qualified solicitor, attorney or equivalent with between 6-8 years of post-qualification experience, having trained and practised for a number of years in either the UK or the US before relocating to Cape Town, developed within an international or reputable law firm and/or in-house within a fast-moving, multi-disciplinary environment. Admission as a conveyancer is not required, and this role is not aimed at candidates whose practice has been in traditional South African conveyancing.
• Deep real estate expertise, with a strong track record across commercial leasehold work, including acquisitions, disposals, lease negotiation, renewals, rent reviews and the full range of landlord and tenant matters.
• Exceptional drafting skills and meticulous attention to detail, with a proven ability to produce accurate, well-structured and internally consistent legal documents and to spot errors, gaps and inconsistencies that others may miss.
• Strong commercial awareness, with the ability to understand the business objectives behind a property transaction and to provide practical, commercially-minded legal support that helps the business achieve its goals.
• Experience in the hospitality, food and beverage, retail or entertainment sectors, or a genuine appetite to develop specialist knowledge of the property issues affecting multi-site operational businesses, would be a strong advantage.
• Good working knowledge of the interfaces between real estate and related disciplines such as planning, premises and entertainment licensing, construction and fit-out, and property finance.
• Confident negotiation skills across a range of property documents, such as leases, agreements for lease, licences, deeds of variation, rent review memoranda and ancillary property documentation.
• Experience managing and instructing external counsel and specialist advisers, and coordinating cross-border matters with internal teams, would be an advantage.

Personal Traits

• Early ventures can inevitably be a little chaotic and information may be hard to glean while the pace of business is fast. These are the investments we make and so the imperfection is what we're here to fix. It's therefore important that you can thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced environment where building structure and process from the ground up is a sign of success.
• A meticulous, detail-oriented approach to your work, taking genuine pride in producing precise, polished and error-free documents even under time pressure.
• A commercially astute mindset, with the judgement to balance legal risk against business priorities and to give practical, solutions-focused advice.
• A proactive, hands-on approach and a willingness to take ownership of your own workstreams and drive them to completion while supporting colleagues across the group.
• Strong organisational skills and the ability to manage competing priorities, keep transactions on track, and communicate clearly with internal stakeholders and external counsel across jurisdictions.
• A process-driven mindset, with an interest in helping to build and maintain internal precedents, playbooks, templates, and workflows that improve the efficiency and consistency of the legal function.
• Comfort with new technologies and an interest in new or innovative ways of working is strongly valued.
• A collaborative team player, eager to contribute to a high-performing, supportive team culture.

Benefits

• 13th Cheque
• Parking Allowance

Compensation: Competitive salary