The division will initially take on debt recovery and conveyancing services from Esson and Aberdein’s sister firm Alston Law.
As part of the launch, Esson and Aberdein has appointed Fallon Spencer as its head of corporate property services.
Spencer hails from McVey and Murricane, where she worked for almost 8 years, most recently as its principle and head of specialised lending.
In her new role, she will work with joint founder Rob Aberdein and head of lender services Joseph Bowie in building a team to deal with debt and asset recovery, dispute resolution asset management, remortgages, equity release lending and conveyancing.
Aberdein says that lenders are having difficulty finding legal partners currently. He explains: “Before the last recession there were perhaps 10 to 20 English firms in this space and around five to 10 Scottish firms, but now there are only around three to four specialist firms with all the correct permissions, relevant specialist experience and appropriate regulatory frameworks in place across the entire UK.
“Under the leadership of Joe and Fallon, we aspire to shake up the sector which in recent years has suffered from a lack of new entrants combined with market consolidation.”
He adds: “A healthy functioning banking system needs to recover debt. During Covid, banks and other lenders put off or delayed the panel tender process so many fresh appointments or reappointments are now overdue.
“Lenders should now be looking at the suitability of contingency firms in the event of the failure of panel firms or their inability to cope with volumes.
“Lenders who fail to progress debt recovery cases in a timeous fashion risk adding unnecessary costs to defaulting assets or will see the asset value decrease. Our team of specialist litigators and paralegals are on hand to ensure that doesn’t happen and we have an ambitious strategic plan to establish Esson & Aberdeen as the go-to corporate debt recovery partner.
“Rising interest rates, inflation, Brexit and the first European war in decades I believe will see the demand soar for regulatory-compliant, ‘oven ready’ debt recovery and conveyancing firms.
“Therefore, we take the view that it is the right time to bring our service proposition to market.”
