Rapleys has bolstered its education and charities team with the appointment of Sam Van de Velde as partner.
Van de Velde joins the firm from Knight Frank where he has worked for the past nine years. He joined Knight Frank as a residential graduate surveyor and worked his way up to associate partner level.
In his new role, he will work alongside partners Adam Harvey and Graham Smith and further expand the team’s offer to deliver education transactions and valuation advice to schools and universities.
Nick Fell, head of residential at Rapleys, said: “Our existing charities team are known as market leaders in the church sector, on top of our other not-for-profit instructions. In recent years we, as a business, have also built up a strong depth of expertise in education, led by building consultancy in particular. Bringing in Sam adds transactional capability in education which will perfectly align with the wider national offering, and further reinforces the advice our churches and wider charity team delivers with plenty of opportunity to cross-sell services across the teams to the benefit of clients.”
Van de Velde added: “I have been following Rapleys’ work in this sector for a while as market leaders in church property transactions and latterly their ongoing growth story across the UK. The opportunity to join a people-focused business with a strong strategic growth plan and for me to help build a bigger team is incredibly exciting.
“The education property sector has seen a number of challenges in recent years from structural issues such as reinforced aerated autoclave concrete [RAAC], to contractual hurdles such as the current PFI situation and private side headwinds like VAT. Having a full service education team that can advise on strategy, valuation, building needs and transactions is becoming increasingly crucial for clients and I cannot wait to explore these synergies between the teams and work collaboratively with my new colleagues.”
