REAL ESTATE PRACTICE

Our Real Estate Group provides expertise across the entire spectrum of real estate transactions, including acquisitions and dispositions of assets and debt, financings, joint ventures, loan workouts and recovery, leasing, development, and construction. Our team has experience with a variety of property types including, office, hotel, multi-family, retail, industrial and condominiums.

Acquisitions and Dispositions, including Real Estate Secured Commercial Mortgage Loans.  We represent clients in the direct purchase and sale of a variety of real estate assets. These transactions include negotiation of purchase agreements, title review, due diligence review relevant to the asset class and closing management.

We are experts in the documentation, negotiation, due diligence review and closing of performing and non-performing debt acquisitions and dispositions. We are experienced advisers helping clients develop strategies that suit their business objectives and risk tolerance.

Debt acquisitions sometimes lead to fee ownership through workout arrangements or foreclosure. As a result, our clients require experienced counsel to go end to end on a transaction including negotiating the acquisition agreement, performing both loan document and asset due diligence, managing the closing process and documenting a workout or foreclosure strategy that maximizes return on investment. A client may also remain the lender for some period of time. Whether a client is a lender for a day, a month or a year, we are experienced at helping clients navigate lending documentation, servicing agreements and workouts while mitigating lender liability risk. For more information about acquiring debt as a strategy to own the underlying asset, click here and read our article published in The Registry, Taking the Stress out of Distressed Debt Acquisition.

Workouts, Bankruptcy, and Foreclosure. Our team is prepared to conduct complete legal due diligence in connection with the credit and collateral to help clients establish a workout strategy and timetable. We will negotiate the workout documentation and help minimize the risks of adversarial litigation, bankruptcy and lender liability claims. Through an association with expert counsel, we also advise clients on the enforcement of creditor's rights, including foreclosure, receiverships and bankruptcy. We are prepared to help with creditors' rights activities including bankruptcy litigation, real and personal property foreclosures, actions on notes and guaranties, receivership proceedings, rent assignment enforcement and other actions to protect and preserve collateral.

Leasing. Our attorneys have negotiated literally hundreds of leases, representing landlords and tenants of both single and multi-tenant office, shopping center, mixed-use and industrial properties in a full range of leasing and leasing-related matters, ranging from straightforward leases to large, complex transactions. We have represented national chains and "big box" retailers, restaurants, golf courses and movie theatres. We work with landlords to help them coordinate total leasing objectives, including listing agreements, management agreements, and construction/development agreements.

Our leasing experience includes the negotiation and documentation of headquarter leases, in-line retail, ground leases and sale/leaseback transactions. We are experienced in negotiating challenging covenants relating to exclusivity, relocation, build-to-suit, operations, go-dark and tenant equity provisions. We also have experience with "green issues" including LEED certification.

Construction and Development. We represent developers and real estate investors throughout the development process and have assisted in the construction and completion of shopping centers, office parks, condominiums and mixed use developments. Our development expertise includes advising clients on acquisitions, financings, entity creation, easements, CC&Rs, development and construction agreements. We also work with clients to negotiate construction and design agreements for a variety of projects.

Financing. We work with lenders and borrowers on complex loan transactions relating to acquisitions, renovations, new construction, and partner buy-outs. Our experience in this area includes the documentation and negotiation of complex commercial loans for hotel, office, multifamily, industrial and retail properties.

Learn about the Representative Transactions of our Real Estate Practice.