About
One chartered surveyor, and the file stays on their desk.
Lateral Vantage exists because the advice landowners most need is the advice the largest firms are least structured to give: one experienced person, on your side, for the whole transaction.
The founder
Michael Donohoe MRICS
I am a RICS chartered planning and development surveyor, and I have spent the last fifteen years working in land and development — with the largest developers and promoters in the UK.
Most of that was done from the buyer’s side of the table, which is the point. I know how a housebuilder’s land team builds a bid, prices planning risk and decides what it will pay, because I spent those years doing it.
Lateral Vantage is what I decided to do with that experience: stop using it to help developers pay less, and use it to help landowners get paid more — and to help developers and promoters find and secure sites that hold up under appraisal.
The firm is based in London, with a core patch across Norfolk, Suffolk, Wiltshire and Herefordshire and a national remit for strategic land.
The name
Why Lateral Vantage.
A vantage point is a position you see from. A lateral one is a position off to the side — the view the people in the middle of the deal do not have.
Fifteen years on the development side of the table is exactly that: a working knowledge of how housebuilders and promoters build their appraisals, price their risk, write their agreements and decide what they will pay. Brought over to the landowner’s side, it is worth a great deal. Kept on the developer’s side, it finds sites other people have walked past.
Standards
Chartered, independent, and accountable.
RICS chartered
Michael Donohoe is a professional member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, working to the RICS Rules of Conduct and the Global Professional and Ethical Standards. Lateral Vantage Land & Planning is not itself a firm regulated by RICS.
Independent
No developer ownership, no promoter tie-ins, no referral arrangements that pay us to point you somewhere. Where a conflict could arise, it is declared before an engagement begins and we act for one party only.
Accountable
A written complaints handling procedure is published on this site, with a named point of contact and fixed response times. See the complaints procedure.
Start a conversation
Tell us about your land.
A confidential, no-obligation appraisal of what your land could be worth, what consent it might realistically achieve, and which route to market fits your circumstances. No fee, no tie-in.