Tom Wainwright

Legal Director, Finance
Manchester, UK

Expertise

Tom is a highly experienced governance lawyer who advises clients primarily in the social housing and charitable sectors.

Tom advises housing association clients on corporate matters including mergers, group structuring arrangements, transfers of engagements, amalgamations, board members’ duties and charity law requirements.

Tom has specialist expertise on areas of law including Regulator of Social Housing regulation, community benefit society law, application of FCA financial services regulation to the housing association sector, grant funding arrangements and related consortium structures, care and support arrangements, the housing association rent regime, housing management agreements, co-operatives and community interest companies. Tom has also provided governance advice to the education and health sectors, and has advised numerous local authorities and academy trusts through the academy conversion process.

Tom has served on the boards of a co-operative academy trust and a community-focused health organisation in Salford. He was also previously company secretary of Supporters Direct, which promoted fan ownership of football clubs.

Experience

Examples of Tom’s experience include:

consolidation of a Yorkshire-based housing and support group, which involved conversion of three of its members from companies to community benefit societies and their subsequent amalgamation into a single entity;
in relation to FCA regulation, advising many housing association clients on FCA registration and ongoing compliance with the FCA’s regulatory regime;
the separate admission of three new members to a group of Christian housing and support charities;
co-ordinating grant funding arrangements for a of housing associations claiming grant from Homes England, as well as from the Greater Manchester, Liverpool, West Midlands and York and North Yorkshire combined authorities;
preparing and negotiating housing and support management agreements for a large number of Registered Providers of social housing.

Publications

Co-wrote Lexis Nexis practice note on the Regulation of Social Housing in England.
Drafted the National Housing Federation’s guidance on how consumer credit law applies to housing associations.

Training delivered

Provides training to the boards and senior management teams of numerous clients on directors' duties, the Regulator of Social Housing's regulatory regime, charity law and FCA regulation requirements.

Year qualified