Legal eagles Clancy Hendrie soar into Edinburgh property scene

A new brand has joined Edinburgh’s legal landscape and its established backers are already keen to corner one particular, growing market.

Clancy Hendrie brings together a firm founded by one of Scotland’s longest serving sole practitioners – Paul Clancy – and a team headed by Mark Hendrie, formerly of Boyd Legal.

The combined practice – based on Corstorphine Road – acts for a host of mortgage brokers undertaking large-volume conveyancing work and has a sizeable presence in the first-time buyers’ sector.

Hendrie – a director within the new business – said the tie-up “made sense” as Clancy and his son, also called Paul, had been looking to expand their business.

The firm is looking to focus on estate agency, property sales and purchase, commercial property and becoming a key player in the booming equity release market.

Recent figures revealed a record start to 2016 for equity release business in the UK with lending hitting just under £394 million, the highest for a first quarter on record. Lending is up 21 per cent, year-on-year, and new equity release plans have reached more than 5,000 for the first time since 2009, according to the Equity Release Council.

Mr Hendrie, who has built up his current team over the past five years, said he was confident he could build up considerable scale to the operation over the coming months.

“I think we can do it. We certainly have the contacts,” he told The Scotsman. “The equity release market is getting bigger and bigger. When they were introduced the products were not that good, but the market is now much better – everything is explained much better.

“Within six to nine months I would like to be one of the largest players in the equity release market and will be investing a lot of time in it.”

The combined firm has taken some 2,000 square feet of space at Murrayburgh House, where it has the capacity to expand its headcount.

There are 22 people across the business at present and while that figure is likely to remain steady as the new operation finds its feet, Hendrie is keen to see that build “six months to a year” down the line. The office space provides capacity for about another ten people, he noted.

Mr Hendrie added: “The firm is all about the people.”