With property markets in freefall and developers facing significant cashflow difficulties, a number of property advisers have set up corporate recovery teams to advise their clients and to help secure "work out solutions" for those facing some or much distress.

"We would have always done it but in a more low-key way," said Mark Reynolds, a director at Savills who is now involved in its corporate recovery team. "People want impartial advice. Solutions are the key. Valuations are only a small part of what's happening."

Savills has worked on a number of insolvency cases and company closures including Worldport Ireland, Fruit of the Loom, Alpha Engineering and Lapple Ireland.

"It's really all about hands-on management of the asset," said Reynolds, adding that realistic "real-life solutions" to problem assets is the most important part of the company's job. "For instance in lands, developers could use licence agreements whereby certain payments become due when various stages are reached within a development."

Rival Jones Lang LaSalle has also entered the market, dubbing its new department a Property and Loan Solutions Group "designed to provide property lenders and corporates exposed to real-estate risk with strategic advice on how to maximise their property assets and minimise associated problems".

Managing director John Moran said that the company is currently meeting financial institutions about the service.

"For tenants, we can draw up a recovery plan to get them out of a mess either through renegotiating leases or seeking rent reductions," he said. "You'd be amazed how many people use property who don't understand how it works and miss break options and so on. They think they're tied in to something and they don't realise what you can do with it. There are remedies available."

Moran said that some occupiers overlooked even the most basic of charges. "They also don't look at their rates bills; they don't look at the service charges and ask 'how can we reduce them or are we getting value for money?'" he said. "They should be asking questions like 'do we need 24-hour security?' for example."

On the banking side, he said it's down to basics. "I have this piece of land. What is it worth? What's the best use it can be put to? Can it be sold? Should I leave it the way it is? Is it the wrong zoning? Can it be rezoned?" Jones Lang LaSalle's team, like the others, brings advisers from various disciplines together. "If you've a retail site, we'll have people from retail, development land, investment and property management in the same room," said Moran.

He said the team is paid for the service on a consultancy basis and if the client then gets an instruction on a property then fees will be negotiated as part of that deal. "We're focused on the developers and the banks," he said. "The key message in all of this is to marry people together. Where people have cash and are in the property game, we might be able to bring them in on a joint venture, on a management fee or performance fee basis."

Moran said banks are still relying a lot on internal help. "The banks still prefer to do it themselves but they don't realise they do not have the capabilities and experience to do it in house," he said. "They still think that a magic wand will be waved in two years' time and things will be fine. In that respect, a little bit more pain would be no harm to them. There's still a lot of denial out there."

Lisney managing director Peter Stapleton said his company set up its Recovery Consultancy Team following a significant amount of enquiries from banks and insolvency practitioners seeking advice on what to do in distressed property situations.

"This reminds me of all the previous slowdowns I've been through in the last 30 years," Stapleton said. "I felt it was time to group and to offer advice on the consultancy side rather than the transaction side and to put our heads together rather than have a slash and burn situation."

He said that most of the team's business will come from "work out" situations where problems arise for property owners, banks and corporate occupiers "with leases around their necks they need to get rid of". While the retail sector was already struggling, he expects corporates to find themselves in a similar situation soon.

In relation to land, he said that there was an impression amongst developers that the current permission, which might have been strenuously fought for, is the best possible. "In many cases though, they're not viable. The type of development will change in the next five years," he said.

"The tendency had been to secure the highest density possible regardless of the product," he added, stating that there was simply not going to be the market for that in the next few years. Concerns are also mounting about service charges in taller buildings, he said, and on the residential side people are now seeking value for money.

"There was a stage where people wanted to get on the ladder and that was through smaller units in larger developments," he said. "Now they're looking at the full cost of living somewhere, who else will be occupying the units and their ability to dispose of a unit when they themselves want to move on. There's a lot of focus on the residential but it's going to affect the commercial market too."