KPMG Law Grows UK Real Estate Team to 15 Lawyers with Senior Hires

KPMG Law has built its UK real estate legal practice to 15 lawyers through a run of senior hires, with the expanded team having closed roughly £3 billion in transactions since the start of 2024.

The four named additions are Rob O'Hanrahan and Paul Dineen, both joining as real estate partners, Peter Lowe as construction partner, and Isabel Tinsley as a finance lawyer. The team operates across KPMG's London and Manchester offices, giving the practice coverage of the two cities that handle the bulk of institutional property investment in the UK.

The £3 billion transaction track record spans industrial and logistics, student accommodation, office developments, and retail. Clients on those deals have included private equity houses, sovereign wealth funds, and major listed pension schemes, a client profile that reflects the kind of institutional mandates KPMG is targeting as it pushes deeper into property legal services.

Andy Pyle, KPMG's global and UK head of real estate, framed the team's trajectory in the firm's terms: "We are really pleased with how our KPMG Law real estate team continues to go from strength to strength after successfully growing its team and delivering great results for our clients. The work that the team does is a great example of how our multi-disciplinary model here at KPMG provides an amazing array of services to all we support. We are excited to see the team further grow in 2026, especially with the new exciting advances the likes of AI can provide to assist current and new clients."

Stuart Bedford, global head of KPMG Legal Services, pointed to the strategic logic of landing partners with established reputations in the market. He noted that the arrival of O'Hanrahan, Dineen, and Lowe had instantly delivered credibility in London, which he described as an essential gateway for European real estate flows.

The 15-lawyer UK real estate capability sits within a broader KPMG Law footprint of more than 250 lawyers in the UK and a global legal network of over 3,850 professionals across 84 countries. The firm's worldwide real estate legal network specifically counts around 370 lawyers.

For 2026, KPMG Law has stated it intends to keep adding headcount to reach a full-service real estate legal offering, combining legal work with the firm's existing real estate tax, accounting, and advisory practices. The pitch to clients is a single provider covering the legal, financial, and regulatory dimensions of investing in, developing, or operating property.

Technology sits alongside the hiring push as a stated priority. KPMG Law plans to work with KPMG's Global Legal and Technology team to apply AI to legal service delivery, with the stated aims of faster turnaround times, greater accuracy, and cost savings for clients managing large property portfolios. The firm also flagged plans for AI applications that allow clients to interact directly with data held inside legal documents, a capability increasingly relevant to institutional investors running complex, multi-asset portfolios.