Ian Cooke

Spear's Review

Ian Cooke has been a senior lawyer for 28 years, advising UHNW clients from around the world on their London super-prime residential property investments. During this time, he has travelled more than two million miles and spent countless nights on aeroplanes to get clients’ deals done. ‘My busy workflow has always followed the movement of cash and investment from different global locations into and out of super-prime London residential property,’ he says.

For the past 15 years, Cooke’s practice at Keystone has been run jointly with business partner Sakhjit Randhawa. ‘Two partners driving the business ensures the optimum service to the clients, given the large and complex caseload we are responsible for,’ he explains.

Adviser Profile

Ian provides Legal advice to UHNWs buying and selling luxury London houses and apartments. This has been the core of his practice and the reason he travels extensively around the world in support of his clients.

He jointly runs the practice and team of Associates with his business Partner, Sakhjit Randhawa, who is also internationally recognised as one of the leading lawyers in this field. Two Partners driving the business ensures the optimum service to clients given the large and complex caseload they are responsible for. Ian and Sakhjit also advise top Prime London property development companies selling luxury stock into the international markets. 

Transactions are high value, confidential, technically complex but often urgent. The best property always commands intense interest and competition from wealthy international buyers as it has a scarcity value. This complicated work has to be navigated correctly, to a challenging timetable, in order to deliver a successful outcome to the client.

Ian is no stranger to super-prime London residential properties worth many millions of pounds. A transaction often sees Ian (or Sakhjit) as the lead lawyer dealing internationally to conduct an orchestra comprising: the client’s private office in their country of origin; the property agents and surveyors in London; the tax advisers to the client who are likely to be in various locations around the world; the client’s lending bank – normally an international or private bank in London, the client’s country of domicile or possibly in the Channel Islands, Switzerland or Singapore.

Ian’s aims are simple:

1. To ensure the client secures a successful outcome; 

2. To make sure no client of his is ever taken advantage of; 

3. To take the strain away from the client – making the complex appear simple; 

4. To conduct meticulous due diligence and deal structuring; 

5. To do all of this swiftly, given competition for best property.