4 January 2013 | Updated: 4 February 2013 9:37 pm

The national law firm chalked up more than 400 reservations in November on behalf of its housebuilder clients.

Derek Archer, national head of the new homes plot sales team, which operates out of Shoosmiths’ Northampton, Birmingham and Manchester offices, said: ‘The total number of reservations this month includes a bulk sale of 50 plots to a national homes provider, but even with those taken out it’s still a great month for us.

‘Indeed, we appear to be defying the doom mongers. Primarily because of the way the team is structured and the first class service we’re able to offer clients, we’re going from strength to strength and have recently grown the team by more than 30 per cent to handle all the work.

‘We just haven’t seen the current poor economic climate reflected in the work the team does, and even our traditionally quieter periods of January and February, then August, have remained busy.

‘It helps that we maintain a constant supply of plots across the country from a range of developers, because when sales in one area of the country go quieter, they often pick up or remain busy elsewhere.’

Three new full-time employees have been taken on to help handle the work, plus two temporary staff who will become full-time assuming volumes continue to grow.

The new homes plot sales team is part of a wider residential development team headed by partner Steve Wiltshire. It specialises in strategic and immediate land acquisitions for a wide range of national and regional developers and investors, the disposal of private and affordable homes, and portfolio sales of ground rents to investors.