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Real Estate Lawyers
Wednesday, 27 July 2016
What Have Commercial Property Lawyers Ever Done For Us?
According to recent research figures, the European commercial property investment market has continued to gain positive momentum with transactions worth €104.9 billion in the first half of 2015.
This represents a 29% increase on last year, and investment volumes for 2015 are forecast to reach €230 billion, which would make it comfortably the best year since 2007.
Clearly, having access to good quality commercial lawyers is critical to a business with property investment in particular throwing up a broad range of legal issues for entrepreneurs to grapple with commercial property lawyer.
You can do a lot of the legwork yourself, but like all areas of business … it’s good to have experts on hand and with commercial property being a specialist area, mistakes and/or poor advice will cost so, here are some reasons why it’s best to get good quality commercial property lawyers on board early;
1 Commercial property lawyers will typically have good network connections.
Many small investors miss out on potential deals as the majority of commercial investments are snapped up by national agents.
A good lawyer can advise and guide you towards the commercial agents who know what is coming onto the market.
If there is future redevelopment potential, then your lawyer will be able to recommend reputable third party experts like building and environmental surveyors.
2 Commercial property deals often involve an extensive amount of documentation.
Whilst lots of basic legal documents are available online, commercial property is one of those specialist area of law where you need to leave the drafting and advising to the experts.
In particular, there is no standard format for leases on commercial properties and so you don’t want to leave yourself in a vulnerable position by leaving out something crucial.
3 Commercial property lawyers are best placed to coordinate and manage negotiations.
Commercial property is often tied in with business usage and business contracts.
Part of your future ownership may be restricted by a third party, for example, there may be a right of access over the property. This is something that your lawyer will be able to advise you on.
In addition to restrictions on use, your lawyer will be able to advise whether (in leaseholds) you need consent for alterations and whether the building is listed and/or in a conservation area.
Commercial property lawyers deal with due diligence on a daily basis and so they know what they are doing.
They can advise you on purchase price or lease premium negotiations, liaise with surveyor/estate agents, review your tax position and manage payment of your stamp duty, land registry fees and insurance costs.
4 Commercial property lawyers will be able to represent you in court in the event a dispute.
Commercial property lawyers will be able to represent you in court if you have a legal conflict and need to start legal proceedings.
You may be able to recover legal damages if you have suffered loss as a result of a property dispute.
Gaby Hardwicke Solicitors is delighted to welcome a new Senior Associate Solicitor, Hannah Bambury, to its Commercial Property team. Before joining Gaby Hardwicke Hannah worked for 15 years at the London office of a multinational law firm, where she amassed a wealth of experience in both commercial and residential property investment work. During her career she has acted for numerous high-profile businesses, most notably in the digital sector. When online travel giant Expedia relocated its European HQ to a new London office, Hannah led on the legal aspects of the move, along with the disposal of Expedia’s previous premises to Facebook. As a result of her work with Expedia, Hannah was then approached by Facebook to deal with its high-profile letting of a 90,000-sq-ft London office. She has since headed up several other Facebook property transactions in London and throughout the UK, including the recent letting of a 60,000-sq-ft London office premises. Another recent example of her work was the letting of premises within London’s Shard building to a US law firm. Hannah has also acted for a number of lenders, including Santander, Lloyds, HSBC, Barclays and RBS, on various commercial property transactions. Gaby Hardwicke Managing Partner, David Getty, said: “Hannah is a great addition to an already strong team. The kind of experience she brings further reduces the need for local businesses to look to the City for expert advice on complex or high-value commercial property matters.” Contact Hannah at hb@gabyhardwicke.co.uk or 01323 435 900 for expert advice on commercial property matters. Her specialisms include commercial investment (acting for both private investors and institutional investors), property finance, corporate occupiers, landlord and tenant and acquisitions and disposals.
Thursday, 21 July 2016
NYC’s biggest real estate law firms
Buoyed by the strong market, the industry’s top law practices are in expansion mode September 01, 2015
By C. J. Hughes  From left: Gary Rosenberg, Luise Barrack and Warren Estis, whose firm nabbed the No. 1 spot. A few years ago, law firms were cutting their payrolls and scrambling to refocus their practices on bankruptcies and restructurings. Indeed, the real estate law industry suffered through several years of volatility in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, when deals came to a near-standstill. And there were casualties. In 2012, the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf filed for bankruptcy, then shuttered, sending its real estate lawyers to rival firms across the city. Today, though, the landscape for real estate lawyers is decidedly better with the boom creating a boatload of legal work from financings to land use issues to development deals. This month, amid that upswing, The Real Deal ranked city’s biggest real estate law practices by number of attorneys. The counts were based on a late-summer snapshot real estate lawer. What we discovered is that the top echelon of the legal industry has significantly expanded in the last five years. In 2010, the last time TRD ranked these firms, there were 794 real estate attorneys working at the top 20 firms. Last month, that number stood at 986 attorneys — an impressive 24 percent jump. However, a closer look reveals that not all firms were driving that growth. In fact, some of the city’s highest-profile names shrank their ranks. For example, Bryan Cave — which had 40 real estate attorneys back in 2010 — had only 27 as of last month and did not rank in the top 20, according to TRD’s tally. Meanwhile, the top-five firms on TRD’s ranking all grew — but by varying amounts. Perhaps the most surprising surge came from Rosenberg & Estis, which beat out a slew of global law firms to take the No. 1 spot. The real estate-only firm — which works exclusively in New York — increased its attorney headcount by a dramatic 64 percent, jumping to 72 lawyers from 44. The rest of the top firms included well-known players: Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Proskauer Rose; Greenberg Traurig ; and Stroock & Stroock & Lavan. And all of those firms are, of course, benefitting from the increased activity in the market. “There’s a lot of money seeking to be in the United States right now, particularly in gateway cities like New York,” said Jonathan Mechanic, head of the real estate practice at Fried Frank. “It’s a funding source for development in New York City. So consequently there’s a lot more legal work.” As a result, hiring has picked up. “In 2010, nobody was really calling anybody,” said Robert Ivanhoe, chairman of Greenberg Traurig’s global real estate practice, referring to law firm recruiting. “But now, the good people at all levels at good practices are very marketable.” “I’m not irrationally exuberant,” added Ivanhoe, whose firm tied for the No. 5 spot, “but I feel generally pretty good about the market.” Serious surges Unlike other top firms, Rosenberg & Estis has not built its business on massive deals that are reinventing neighborhoods wholesale, like, say, Hudson Yards. In fact, it specializes in the less-glamorous and lower-profile world of landlord-tenant disputes, though its work does run the gamut, from financing deals as small as $3 million, to sizeable development projects, mostly on behalf of the Durst Organization, like Via, the 709-unit tetrahedron-shaped rental rising on West 57th Street and the West Side Highway. Rosenberg, which was founded in 1979, also usually charges less for its services than rival firms, said founding member Gary Rosenberg. (As TRD has reported, top-rung attorneys at some of New York’s most prestigious firms can command around $1,000 an hour.) “We think our rates are very competitive,” he said, though he declined to be specific. At the same time, associates have flocked to work at the firm because it doesn’t require 80-hour weeks, he explained: “We respect that you can have a family and a life outside.” The last decade hasn’t been all wine and roses for the firm. Between 2009 and 2011 it froze its billing rates because clients were struggling, according to Rosenberg. “The deals we were doing were not making the clients money but cutting their losses,” he said. “But these last five years have been just about the best five years I can recall,” said Rosenberg. Meanwhile, Skadden, an elite white-shoe law firm perhaps best known for its mergers and acquisitions and corporate advisory work, has also grown its real estate practice substantially. As of last month, the firm, whose real estate practice is led by Neil Rock, had 65 real estate lawyers in New York, up from 46 five years ago — a 41 percent increase. The firm was one of several that represented China’s Anbang Insurance Group in its blockbuster $1.95 billion purchase of the Waldorf Astoria hotel from Hilton Worldwide Holdings in 2014. (Fried Frank, Greenberg Traurig and Hogan Lovells were the others.) Other firms are adding lawyers in spades, too. Stroock, whose real estate practice is headed by industry veteran Leonard Boxer, grew its New York real estate practice to 60 attorneys from 43. Stroock prides itself on having a wide range of expertise in-house, from commercial lending to land-use, partners said, noting that single-focus firms sometimes have to bring on outside experts which can rattle clients. Among Stroock’s specialized groups is its co-op and condo division, which represents about 325 boards and is headed by partner Eva Talel. For Talel, business is largely being driven up by boards trying to pass smoking bans and dealing with senior citizens who can no longer care for themselves; she recently represented an Upper East Side co-op board forced to evict a woman in her 80s after she missed “many, many months” of maintenance payments. Meanwhile, Duval & Stachenfeld, which ranked No. 7, has been quietly expanding. It logged 54 real estate lawyers, up from 31 five years ago. The firm, which was founded in 1997 by real estate practice chair Terri Adler, helped structure the complicated ground lease for the Carlton House, a luxury co-op at 680 Madison Avenue that’s being developed by Extell and Angelo, Gordon & Co. It was also involved in the $277 million sale of the ground-floor retail condo there in 2013, to Thor Equities. Lean and mean Not everyone is in extreme expansion mode. For some, the last five years have been more about adding lawyers on a piecemeal basis — or shrinking. In addition to Bryan Cave, well-known firms that have downsized their local real estate practices include Morrison Foerster and Willkie Farr & Gallagher. (Those firms did not make the top 20.) Still, Bryan Cave, which had 27 lawyers this time versus 40 attorneys on the last go-round, has a roster of high-level clients including developers like Extell Development Company, Silverstein Properties, Madison Equities and the Gotham Organization, which it represented at Gotham West, a $520 million project that takes up nearly a full city block at 11th Avenue and West 45th Street. In recent years, Bryan Cave’s has also added several non-bank lenders, like Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group and Dune Real Estate Partners, to its client list, said Andy Auerbach, deputy leader of the real estate practice. “It’s a very exciting area for us,” Auerbach said. Others are growing, but at a slower clip. For example, Fried Frank, which acts as legal counsel on some of the biggest and most sophisticated real estate deals in the city, increased its New York real estate practice to 65 attorneys from 60 in 2010. Mechanic said the firm — which ranked No. 1 in 2010 and tied for the No. 2 spot this year — is “all over Hudson Yards,” the 28-acre mini city that the Related Companies is building on the Far West Side. “When you think about all of the development going on there it’s mind boggling,” he said, noting that Fried Frank not only represented Related there, but also represented Coach and Time Warner in their mega office leases at the site, among other deals there. Similarly, it handled the 1 million-square-foot office lease for media giant Condé Nast at One World Trade, and is handling the planned 1.3 million-square-foot lease for News Corp. and 21st Century Fox at Two World Trade. While the firm let people go back in 2008 and 2009, it is “actively recruiting” today, Mechanic said. “We started mushrooming again,” he noted. Meanwhile, Greenberg Traurig, which has 38 offices globally, had 60 New York real estate lawyers, just three more than five years ago, though Ivanhoe said he hired partners and associates since TRD completed its tally.  Jonathan Mechanic, the head of Fried Frank’s real estate practice The firm, like others, has enjoyed a boon from Chinese investment in New York, representing developers in their quest for funding through EB-5, the U.S. visa-for-investment program that developers have been tapping for financing. Likewise, when China’s Sunshine Insurance Group bought Midtown’s Baccarat hotel for $230 million earlier this year, Greenberg worked on behalf of the seller, Starwood Capital Group. Greenberg, like other firms, has taken an incremental approach to rates. Ivanhoe told TRD he billed $1,025 an hour last year. This year, it is $1,050, about a 2 percent increase, a far cry from the nearly double-digit annual increases during the last boom a decade ago, Ivanhoe said. He said the flow of capital into New York bodes well for the legal profession. “New York City is clearly the hottest market in the U.S., with the exception of maybe San Francisco,” Ivanhoe said. “But New York is a much, much larger market, and the demand to buy here is unbelievable.” That, of course, is creating more work on the political-consulting front, too, which Herrick Feinstein is pleased to pick up. The firm — which had 53 attorneys up from 46 in 2010 — has a strong real-estate lobbying arm, which deploys urban planning experts who represent developers and other real estate interests to woo the city’s Planning Department, said Jonathan Adelsberg, a senior partner. Adelsberg has also represented Michael Ring in a variety of transactions, including the well-publicized feud with his brother over the infamous NoMad-based real estate portfolio amassed by their father. Many of those buildings were recently sold to Extell. Belkin Burden Wenig & Goldman, with 48 attorneys, also represents real estate dynasties like the Milsteins, the Rudins and the Macklowes. However, work on behalf of 300 co-op boards is generally its bread and butter. Sherwin Belkin, the firm’s chairman and one of its founding partners, touted the firm’s cost-effectiveness when compared with some of the heavy hitters on the ranking. “We can offer a lot more close client attentiveness, and perhaps at a better price point,” he said. In the end, though, size is only a single metric to evaluate the influence of a firm, lawyers say. And many firms feel they don’t have to swell their ranks to get ahead. “I would rather be lean and mean and service a very select group of clients, as opposed to being all things to all people,” said Herrick’s Adelsberg. Correction: Due to a research oversight, these firms — Haynes & Boone, Goodwin & Procter and Kaye Scholer — were left off the original version of this ranking. They have been included and the ranking updated.
Friday, 15 July 2016
The 5 Best Real Estate Lawyers in Los Angeles
Los Angeles is the second-largest city in the United States and the center of one of the world's largest urban agglomerations. Los Angeles County, which encompasses Los Angeles and several of its suburbs, is home to nearly 55,000 lawyers as of 2015, thousands of whom practice real estate law. These professionals handle all kinds of legal matters arising from ownership of real property. They handle real estate transactions, negotiate leases, litigate property disputes and consult on land use laws, among other activities. The lawyers detailed on this list rate among the city's best options in a variety of specialty practice areas. They each bring a record of experience and performance, boasting high ratings from former clients. However, there are many other competent, high-performing real estate lawyers operating across Los Angeles. Keep in mind that this list should serve only as an initial step in your search. To identify the right lawyer to handle your specific legal issue, it is important to speak to at least several promising candidates to get a real sense of who has the right experience, expertise and character to handle your business real estate lawer. David TabibianDavid Tabibian handles real estate transactions for developers, investors, high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), landlords, commercial banks and other clients with high-value projects. He oversees all aspects of real estate transactions and has drafted complex purchase and sales agreements, loan documents, commercial leases and settlement agreements. Tabibian has experience handling real estate projects of all kinds, including hotels, retail and office buildings, single-family and multifamily residential properties, industrial projects and mixed-use developments. Tabibian is a senior associate attorney in the real estate department at Glaser Weil Fink Howard Avchen & Shapiro, one of the nation's top full-service law firms. He works at the firm's main office in the Century City neighborhood of Los Angeles and has practiced law since 2007. Zachary D. SchorrZachary D. Schorr is an experienced litigator who specializes in real estate disputes. He handles virtually all disputes arising in the residential and commercial real estate arena, including purchase and sale disputes, commercial lease disputes, easement disputes, commercial evictions, residential landlord-tenant disputes and many other types of legal issues. Shore has practiced law in Los Angeles for 13 years. The Schorr Law office is located in the Sawtelle area of the city. Deborah R. BronnerDeborah R. Bronner is an experienced real estate lawyer offering a range of services for distressed families struggling to keep their homes. Bronner represents parties facing eviction, litigates wrongful foreclosures and handles bankruptcies, short sales and debt settlement negotiations. Apart from her work with distressed homeowners, Bronner also provides a full range of real estate transaction services and offers commercial lease review and negotiation services. She has been practicing law in Los Angeles and Southern California for 28 years. Her office is located in the Los Angeles suburb of Culver City. Melissa C. MarshMelissa C. Marsh has 19 years of experience practicing real estate and business law in Los Angeles. She handles all transactional aspects of residential and commercial property sales, negotiates and drafts commercial and residential lease agreements and construction contracts, and represents parties involved in landlord-tenant disputes. Marsh also handles condominium and homeowners association disputes and represents landowners involved in boundary-line disputes. Marsh's law offices are located in the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles. Pankaj S. RavalPankaj S. Raval is a business and real estate lawyer with special expertise in landlord-tenant disputes. Raval has experience representing interests and rights on both sides of the landlord-tenant relationship. His primary focus is on mediating disputes to bring about mutually agreeable solutions while protecting the rights and interests of his clients. Raval also handles commercial lease negotiations and provides lease review services. He has practiced law in Los Angeles for five years. He started his legal career in Arizona and maintains an active license to practice in the state. Raval's law offices are located in the U.S. Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles. commercial real estate development in Pasadena was beset by costly delays, and a major investor in the project -- a prominent TV producer -- was fed up, hiring a high-priced New York attorney to wrest control from the developer.
A meeting was called. Phillip R. Nicholson, one of the senior attorneys for the developer, had a simple strategy: Just listen to what the New York lawyer said. Don’t argue. When the lawyer finished with a string of harsh demands, Nicholson asked for time to think it over.
At the office later, Nicholson directed attorney Mario Camara to look up a particular section in the California penal code. He then asked Camara to draft a letter to the New York lawyer citing that section -- and pointing out that extortion was illegal in California.
The threats went away, Camara said. The episode, which occurred three decades ago, was just one of many examples of how Nicholson helped his colleagues navigate the thorniest of legal thickets, he said.
Nicholson, 79, died Monday at his Pacific Palisades home after a long illness. He was a founding partner of Cox, Castle & Nicholson, a Century City-based law firm specializing in real estate. His clients included Southern California developers Rob Maguire and the late Ray Watt. Nicholson also served on the board of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. and held board positions with both the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate and UCLA’s Center for Real Estate. Born Dec. 17, 1935, in Ottumwa, Iowa, Nicholson grew up in the South Bay. As a 12-year-old, he suffered a partial amputation of his foot after accepting a dare to climb an oil derrick and then suffering an injury. It took hours for help to arrive, leading a local paper to tell the story with the headline, “The Bravest Little Boy in the World,” recalled Jennifer Nicholson Salke, one of his four daughters. The injury took the steam out of a budding athletic career, but Salke said her father used the money he received in a settlement after the injury to buy a saxophone -- leading to a high school dance band and a lifelong avocation. Salke, the president of NBC Entertainment, said she learned valuable lessons from her father that have served her well in her career. “He was always calm in the center of the storm,” she recalled. “In real estate, there are a lot of big personalities -- just as there are in our business. He always maintained this calm, centered presence -- and I’ve tried to do the same.” Nicholson earned his law degree at USC and co-founded the firm that bears his name in 1968. “He was way ahead of his time in his view of what a law firm should be,” said Camara, a partner at the firm. “At the time, the typical law firm was far too hierarchical. The bureaucracy and the pecking order got in the way of client service. He thought lawyers were far too often focused on monetary awards and not client success.” Nicholson’s solution, Camara said, was to spread management responsibilities around and to give younger lawyers as many duties as they could handle. The lawyer was so beloved by his colleagues, he added, that the firm’s partners gave him a prized Harley-Davidson motorcycle as a 65th birthday present. “That was something we did out of our hearts, because he did so much for us.” Nicholson is survived by his wife of 55 years, Joan, and his sister, Lois Nicholson. In addition to Jennifer Salke, Nicholson had three other daughters: Jill Nicholson Samuel, Lauren Nicholson and Amy Nicholson Zimmerman. Maguire, whose list of developments include the Wells Fargo Center and the Gas Co. Tower in downtown Los Angeles, said Nicholson shares some credit for today’s Los Angeles skyline. “He was very imaginative and creative, and we were always doing unusual deals,” Maguire said. “He was much more than just a lawyer. We were doing some very big transactions, and he was a full participant.”
Wednesday, 6 July 2016
A ‘golden era’ for Vancouver commercial real estate lawyers
VANCOUVER — You see a lot of stories about residential real estate in Vancouver. Less gets written about the commercial market, even though Vancouver-based business lawyers say they’re practising in what could be remembered as the “golden era” for commercial real estate. Deals involving office buildings, retail locations, high-density condo projects, and industrial lands have been booming for a few decades. Many lawyers peg Vancouver’s Expo 86 as the moment that got the ball rolling. The boom has continued due to the development of the Expo ’86 lands after the event, the construction and expansion of a rapid transit system, the 2010 Winter Olympics, and an influx of investment from China, Japan, Europe, the U.S. and the big Canadian pension funds. According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, commercial real estate sales hit a five-year, third-quarter high of 550 transactions for a total $1.9 billion, up from 471 sales for $1.42 billion in the same period of 2014 lawyer for real estate. The simmering market has made real estate the “must-do” practice for young lawyers interested in practising business law, says Keith Burrell, a partner in the Vancouver office with McCarthy Tétrault LLP, and according to Chambers Canada 2016, one of the best real estate lawyers in both Vancouver and Canada. “In Vancouver real estate attracts good practitioners.” Those who’ve taken the plunge have had no regrets. Scott Smythe, another McCarthy partner in Vancouver who has been ranked by Chambers, says deciding to practise real estate law was a “no brainer” because there was so much opportunity. “It turned out to be the right thing to do because it happened to coincide with what I’m sure we’re going to look back on as really a golden era in British Columbia in terms of real estate. It’s been a great market for a long time.” The traditional explanation for Vancouver’s hefty real estate prices is that geography constrains the supply of land. The western edge of the city is bounded by the sea, while it’s hemmed in by mountains in the north and the U.S. border in the south. The city and its suburbs have gradually expanded eastward into the Fraser Valley, but that growth faces limits due to an agricultural land reserve and some transportation bottlenecks. Some Vancouver lawyers say that old explanation has given way to a new driving force: fresh capital. Institutional investors from Central Canada are now much more familiar with the Vancouver marketplace. International investors also see the potential. Chinese investors last Fall paid $122-million or roughly $600 a square foot to buy a B-class office tower called the United Kingdom Building. And the international interest goes well beyond mainland China, says Peter Tolensky, aChambers-ranked real estate lawyer who heads Lawson Lundell LLP’s real estate practice group. U.S. investors are also keen on B.C., particularly because of the exchange rate, he says. “Keep in mind that with the Canadian dollar where it is right now, a lot of people would view B.C. as basically a 20 to 30 per cent discount off the top if they’re coming in with U.S. dollar buying power.” Population growth and the improved transit infrastructure that came with the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic games are also helping demand, Tolensky says. “That Olympic boom spurred a lot of transit-related development, with the addition of the Canada Line (rapid transit line) along Cambie Street. That certainly was the first big transit change, and real estate and transit go very well together. So densification along transit lines is certainly a growing trend here,” Tolensky says. John Sampson of Bull, Housser & Tupper in Vancouver, another ranked real estate practitioner by Chambers Canada, echoes those sentiments. He has seen how the addition of transit links has triggered the development of several mixed use projects along expanded transit corridors in the greater Vancouver area. Visitors to Vancouver who want to see what he means should stop by the massive Marine Gateway project at the corner of Cambie Streets and South West Marine Drive, not far from Vancouver International Airport. “As far as commercial real estate is concerned, I would say it’s as busy as ever. Vancouver is still a very competitive and a very busy commercial real estate market,” Sampson says. It’s the big projects that draw Vancouver’s real estate lawyers into the business, such as Ross MacDonald, a partner with Stikeman Elliott LLP in Vancouver. MacDonald once planned to become a woodworking teacher. A university friend dared him to take the LSAT, and he did well enough to get into law school. Three decades later, Chambers ranks him as one of the top real estate lawyers in Vancouver and he’s the managing partner of Stikeman’s Vancouver office. As he looks back, he believes the big real estate drive began when lawyers and developers did the deals that carved up the Expo 86 lands. The commercial and legal agreements that developed those lands have over the years been refined and perfected, and have served as the foundation for a generation’s worth of commercial real estate development. He worked on some of those first deals — pioneering work he now describes as “exciting and terrifying at the same time.” That’s probably why he and his partners prefer working on big long-term development projects, rather than quick transactions, he says. “We like it more. It’s more interesting. It’s longer term. You get to know the people better. You get to understand the business of real estate development. You can’t be an effective real estate development counsel unless you understand real estate development.”
Tuesday, 28 June 2016
Lifelong Ocalan and real estate attorney recognized for 50 years in Florida Bar
Published: Sunday, June 19, 2016 at 6:30 a.m.Last Modified: Friday, June 17, 2016 at 2:42 p.m.Landis Curry's family has long had ties to Silver Springs. His grandfather worked until retirement as a mechanic at the attraction. His mother mother was born and raised along the Silver River. In the 1930s and 1940s, Curry played and fished and hitchhiked into town with the Seminole children whose encampment was part of the attraction. So he recognized the significance immediately when, years later, he found himself handling a real estate transaction involving the tourist hot-spot, which is now a state park, as an attorney with a local law firm attorney for real estate. “That's about as far as you can run around the table,” Curry said. This year marks his 50th year in the Florida Bar for Curry, who at 81 years old continues to work full-time at the downtown firm Ayres, Cluster, Curry, McCall, Collins, Bank and McClean, PA. With a focus on real estate law for most of his career, Curry has a represented several of the major developers that have shaped his once small and sleepy hometown over the years. These include the On Top of the World community, for example, and DeLuca Toyota. Curry said he is looking to wind down his professional life soon, but in the meantime continues to enjoy the work that has kept him coming to the office for so many years. “Lanny Curry has been a real asset to the Marion County legal community,” said Jimmy Gooding, who earlier in his career worked with Curry. “Seldom do you find such a great mixture of intelligence, legal skills and humor.” A Massachusetts real estate attorney pleaded guilty last week to charges stemming from a wide-ranging scheme to defraud banks and mortgage companies as part of a conspiracy involving numerous sham short sales. Hyacinth Bellerose, 50, of Dunstable, Mass., pleaded guilty last week to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, Bellerose colluded with others – including a loan officer and a real estate agent who were not identified in the charging document – to defraud various banks through the use of bogus short sales of homes in Haverhill, Lawrence and Methuen. The conspiracy began in approximately August 2007 and continued through June 2010. According to the U.S. Attorney, during that time period, home values in Massachusetts declined precipitously, and many homeowners found themselves suddenly owing more on their home than the home’s value. As part of the scheme, Bellerose and her co-conspirators submitted materially false and misleading documents to numerous banks in an effort to induce them to permit the short sales, which would release the purported sellers from their unpaid mortgage debts, while simultaneously inducing the purported buyers’ banks to provide financing for the deals. But, the purported sellers simply stayed in the homes with their debt substantially reduced while Bellerose and others made money from the transactions fees associated with the fake sales, the U.S. Attorney said. In some cases, the conspirators then re-sold the properties in genuine arms-length transactions for a profit. As part of the conspiracy, the conspirators falsely led banks to believe that the sales were arms-length transactions between unrelated parties, when in fact, the transactions were not arms-length, and the sellers retained control of (and frequently continued to live in) the properties after the sale. In some cases, the purported third-party buyers were actually the spouses, parents or children of the purported sellers. For example, in one transaction, the unnamed loan officer and the loan officer’s spouse signed two purchase and sale agreements, dated five days apart, in which they purported to agree to the sale of their Methuen home to a third party. In the first agreement, they claimed to sell the property for $299,000. In the second, they claimed to sell the property for $289,000. The first agreement was provided to Chase Home Finance, which held the first mortgage on the home, and also affirmed that they were unrelated and that there was no agreement that would allow the sellers to remain in the property after the sale. In fact, the supposed buyer was the mother of one of the sellers, who intended to remain in the property after the supposed sale. To facilitate the transaction, the conspirators submitted to Bank of America a loan application on behalf of the purported buyer that falsely represented her employment status, and was accompanied by phony earnings statements. The conspirators also submitted to Bank of America the second purchase and sale agreement, reflecting the higher purported sale price of $299,000. In connection with the purported sale, Bellerose prepared two HUD-1 Settlement Statements. One Settlement Statement was provided to Chase as the short-selling bank, and reflected a purported sale price of $289,000, and a purported buyer deposit of $15,216. The other Settlement Statement, which was provided to Bank of America and the Federal Housing Administration, reflected a purported sale price of $299,000, and a purported buyer deposit of $14,916. In fact, the purported buyer did not make any down payment toward the sale, which was financed entirely by the mortgage loan from Bank of America. The charge of conspiracy to commit bank fraud provides for a sentence of no greater than 30 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $1 million.
Wednesday, 22 June 2016
HechtSolberg Named 2016 San Diego Tier 1 ‘Best Law Firm’ in Two Real Estate Practice Areas
HechtSolberg has been honored as a Tier 1 San Diego law firm in the areas of real estate law and land use and zoning law in the U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers 2016 rankings. The firm was also designated a Tier 2 law firm for San Diego in the area of corporate law. Firms included in the 2016 “Best Law Firms” list are recognized for professional excellence through consistently impressive ratings from clients and peers. Achieving a tiered ranking signals a unique combination of skill, integrity and qualifications. To be eligible for a ranking in a particular practice area and metro region, a law firm must have at least one lawyer who is included in Best Lawyers in that particular practice area and metro. Earlier this year, HechtSolberg attorney Paul E. Robinson was named the 2016 San Diego Land Use and Zoning Law “Lawyer of the Year.” Other HechtSolberg attorneys honored on the 2016 Best Lawyersranking are Darryl O. Solberg for Business Organizations, Corporate Law and Real Estate Law and David W. Bagley II for Real Estate Law best real estate law firms. “We are particularly proud of being ranked among San Diego’s best law firms because this ranking is generated by a rigorous evaluation process based heavily on peer and client reviews,” said Mickey Maher, managing partner at HechtSolberg. “This designation reflects the high level of respect we have earned from our clients and the San Diego legal community during the firm’s more than 40 years of leadership in the real estate and business industry.” MILWAUKEE (August 25, 2015) – Michael Best & Friedrich LLP has been ranked as a top 25 Real Estate Law Firm in Midwest Real Estate News’ “Best of the Best” 2015 guide. The “Best of the Best” 2015 guide is a compilation of leading law firms in the Midwest that practice Commercial Real Estate.
“It is an honor to be recognized again as one of the best law firms in commercial real estate, and we believe it is a testament to the exceptional skill and experience our attorneys bring to the table.” said Transactional Practice Group Chair, Michael S. Green. “We strive to stay at the forefront of real estate law in order to help our clients achieve their goals.”
Michael Best’s Real Estate Practice Group is deeply involved in all aspects of the real estate and project development industry in our own markets and on a national level. Our practice focuses on the structuring and development of large, complex private and public-private projects. Michael Best's real estate attorneys are well versed in every segment of the real estate industry, including land use, acquisition/disposition, leasing, financing, partnership structuring, and tax credits. Mid-Atlantic Bio Angels (MABA), an angel investor group focused on early-stage life science companies, announced that NangioTx, Inc. was voted as “Best in Show” at the first of MABA's 1st Pitch Life Science events of 2016, which took place at the Civic Hall in New York City on February 23, 2016. Partner Stephen M. Goodman is a co-founder of MABA. "As evidenced by the generally positive comments from the panel, NangioTx co-founder Vivek Kumar concisely articulated the medical issue and the proposed solution, provided enough data to give substance to the company's hypothesis and set out a reasonable path to market, without minimizing potential issues. A well-deserved win," commented Goodman. NangioTx is a Houston-based drug development company developing a novel drug promoting growth of new blood vessels in the muscles of patients with peripheral artery disease, which causes muscle atrophy and cell death. The real estate practices of two law firms with offices in Grand Rapids have been recognized as the “best of the best” in the Midwest region. Dickinson Wright and Warner Norcross were both included on the list of 37 top-ranking real estate practices by Midwest Real Estate News in the publication’s “2015 Best of the Best” issue. Entries from more than 60 Midwest commercial real estate law firms were submitted and rankings were calculated based on the total dollar volume of transactions completed in 2014, according to Midwest Real Estate News. Dickinson Wright Dickinson Wright earned the No. 2 slot on the list. Dickinson Wright’s real estate practice is comprised of more than 95 lawyers who are actively involved in diverse real estate matters and regularly represent a wide variety of clients including property owners, developers, managers, contractors, lenders, investors, corporations, nonprofits and governments, among others, in all aspects of real estate. The firm has offices across Michigan, as well as Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Nevada, Arizona, Washington, D.C., and Toronto, and has experience in real estate transactions in nearly all 50 states and throughout Canada. “Our outstanding team of real estate attorneys strives to provide our clients with the expertise and unwavering dedication,” said Harlan W. Robins, practice department manager for real estate, environmental, and energy and sustainability. “Our deal volume reflects their hard work, shoulder to shoulder with our clients.”
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