Corporate legal retainership from a property law firm in Dhaka

Companies that buy, build, lease or hold property face legal questions every week, not once a year. A retainer gives your team a property law firm in Dhaka that already knows your projects, your documents and your way of working, so questions are answered quickly and nothing is signed without review.

What a legal retainer means

A legal retainer is a standing arrangement in which a company engages a law firm to provide an agreed range of legal services for a fixed period, usually for a monthly or annual fee. Instead of instructing a lawyer from the start each time a question arises, the company has counsel who already holds its files and knows its business.

For property companies, a retainer is most useful where legal work is regular and documentary: agreements, land papers, notices, registrations and the steady flow of questions from management, sales and site teams.

Who can benefit from a legal retainer?

• Real estate developers with several projects, landowners and buyers to manage at once
• Construction companies that sign contracts with developers, suppliers and subcontractors
• Property investment companies acquiring and holding land and buildings
• Businesses holding significant property, such as factories, warehouses, showrooms and offices
• SMEs that need regular legal support but do not need a full in-house legal team
• Institutions with property portfolios, leases and tenancy matters

A retainer is not always the right choice. If your legal needs are occasional, instructing us matter by matter may cost less. We will tell you which arrangement fits.

Retainer or per-matter instruction

	Retainer	Per-matter instruction
Best for	Regular, ongoing legal work	Occasional, one-off matters
Fee	Fixed monthly or annual fee for an agreed scope	Separate quotation for each matter
Knowledge of your business	Builds over time; files held by the firm	Explained afresh each time
Response	Agreed response times	Depends on availability
Preventive review	Built in: contracts reviewed before signing	Usually only when a problem arises

Typical areas of ongoing legal support

• Ongoing legal advisory. On-call advice for management by phone, email or meeting.
• Contract review and drafting. Sale agreements, vendor and contractor contracts, consultancy agreements and investment contracts.
• Property transaction review. Legal review of each acquisition, sale or lease before signing.
• Property due diligence. Title verification and deed-chain examination for land the company plans to buy. See property due diligence.
• Land documentation. Keeping deeds, khatians, mutation records and tax receipts complete and current.
• Developer documentation. Landowner agreements, powers of attorney, allocation and handover documents. See project legal documentation.
• Leasehold matters. Transfers, mutation and compliance for leasehold and RAJUK matters.
• Lease review. Leases for offices, showrooms, warehouses and land the company takes or gives. Our commercial space rent agreement sample shows the basic structure.
• Legal notices. Drafting, sending and replying to legal notices.
• Regulatory and documentation support. Coordination with authorities on approvals, registrations and records.
• Corporate and property coordination. Board resolutions, authorisations and company documents needed for property transactions.
• Dispute prevention. Reviewing problems early, before they become claims.
• Legal risk management. Periodic review of open legal risks, with a short written report to management.

How the retainer relationship works

1. Initial meeting. We meet your management to understand the business, current projects and existing legal work.
2. Document audit. We review key agreements and property files and list open issues.
3. Scope and quotation. We propose what the retainer covers, response times, the reporting line and a fixed fee, in a formal written quotation.
4. Engagement letter. The scope, fee, term and confidentiality terms are recorded in an engagement letter.
5. Regular support. Your team contacts a named lawyer at the firm. Routine requests are handled within the agreed response time.
6. Periodic review. We meet at agreed intervals to review open matters and adjust the scope if your needs change.

What is included and what is billed separately

Every retainer is set by its engagement letter. As a general pattern:

Usually included	Usually billed separately or at agreed rates
Advice to management on day-to-day legal questions	Court cases and arbitration, including land disputes and litigation
Review and drafting of routine agreements and notices	Large transactions or full project due diligence beyond the agreed volume
Legal review of property files and transactions	Government fees, stamp duty, registration costs and certified copy charges
Attendance at agreed meetings	Travel outside Dhaka for site or court work, where agreed

Every fee is agreed in advance through a formal quotation, so there are no hidden costs.

Common legal gaps we find in property companies

• No central file for land documents. Originals are spread between directors, staff and landowners.
• Contracts signed from old templates. Terms from a previous project carry over and do not fit.
• Board approvals missing for property deals. This causes delay at registration and with banks.
• Notices answered by staff without review. A careless reply can admit liability.
• Buyer and landowner complaints left too long. Small problems become cases.

A retainer fixes these gaps gradually, because the same lawyers see the documents every month.

Guidance for different businesses

Developers

The retainer usually covers land review, agreements, buyer documents and handover. Litigation and arbitration are added at agreed rates. Many developers find that a monthly review of open project issues prevents most late-stage disputes.

SMEs and businesses holding property

The retainer usually centres on contracts, leases and notices, with property due diligence when the business buys or rents premises. A smaller scope with a lower fee is often enough.

Institutions

Schools, hospitals, associations and similar bodies often hold land through committees or trusts. The retainer covers their title records, leases and the approvals needed for construction or transfer.

What a typical retainer month looks like

For a mid-sized developer, a normal month under retainer might include reviewing two or three buyer agreements, answering questions from the sales team on allocation, checking the papers for a new plot under consideration, drafting a supplementary deed after a landowner’s death, and replying to a buyer’s legal notice about delay. None of these is large on its own. Together, handled without a retainer, they would mean five separate instructions, five fee discussions and five lawyers learning the background again.

Under a retainer, each of these goes to the same team, through one contact person, and is logged in a simple matter list that management can see. At the periodic review, we look at that list together, close what is done and flag what needs a decision.

Reporting and communication

• Single point of contact. Your company deals with a named lawyer, with the head of firm involved on significant matters.
• Written advice. Advice that affects a decision is confirmed in writing, so management has a record.
• Matter list. A short list of open matters, their status and next step, shared at agreed intervals.
• Agreed channels. Email for documents and formal advice; phone or WhatsApp for quick questions, as agreed in the engagement letter.

Confidentiality and conflicts

An advocate in Bangladesh owes a professional duty of confidentiality to the client, and the engagement letter can add contractual confidentiality terms where a company needs them. Before accepting a retainer, we check for conflicts of interest. We do not act against an existing client in a matter connected to our work for them, and we do not act for both sides of the same transaction, such as a developer and its landowner in the same agreement.

Why a property law firm for your retainer

General corporate firms often treat property as a side matter. At Ain Bisharod, land and real estate law is the foundation of the firm. For a company whose main assets or business are property, that means the lawyer answering your questions on a contract is the same lawyer who can read the deed chain behind it.

It also means fewer hand-offs. When a contract question turns into a title question, or a buyer complaint turns into a registration problem, the work stays in one firm that already knows the file. For property companies, that continuity is often worth more than the fee saved by shopping each matter separately.

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