Real Estate
Fidelity Law represents clients in a wide range of real estate matters from the acquisition stage, through development, construction, financing, leasing, and sale. They represent developers, contractors, apartment complex owners, farmers, shopping center owners, office building owners, and buyers and sellers of major real estate projects. Their legal team is experienced in performing due diligence on complex real estate matters. They regularly represent clients in negotiating commercial leases, both as landlords and as tenants. In the course of their representation they attempt to understand and fulfill their clients’ business goals and quickly close their transactions. If problems are encountered in a transaction, they find cost efficient and creative solutions.
Fidelity Law routinely represents clients on major real estate matters, including those with tax exempt entities, which requires experience in creative structuring of transactions. They advise clients on the most tax efficient structure to own real estate, as well as how to structure and plan their real estate dispositions and sales to eliminate and minimize taxes. Where taxes are recognized on a transaction, they attempt to structure the transaction to achieve lower long-term capital gain treatment. Their involvement has included representing clients in acquiring, selling and developing office buildings, industrial parks, shopping centers, condominium developments, residential subdivisions, apartment projects, and agricultural properties.
Some examples of their real estate practice are:
- Structuring and forming partnerships, limited liability companies, joint ventures, and trusts for clients’ real estate operations, in order to minimize taxes and to reduce exposure to liabilities. They represent developers seeking lender and equity participants in real estate joint ventures.
- Assisting clients to purchase and sell office buildings, retail shopping centers, industrial parks, apartment complexes and agricultural land.
- Negotiating and preparing documents for real estate projects’ long-term financing and construction loans.
- Working with clients and their real estate brokers and advisors to devise strategies for splitting up, selling and reorganizing real estate projects and ventures.
- Assisting clients with the business and tax structuring of loan workouts and debt forgiveness.
- Representing landlords and tenants. They represent clients in negotiating and preparing major and complex office, distribution, warehouse, retail and industrial leases. They also assist clients in long-term ground leases, and sale and lease back transactions.
- Advising clients on alternative ways to structure tenant improvements and personal property to maximize tax benefits, and how to perform cost segregation studies on their properties.
- Assisting clients to split up real estate partnerships, LLCs, and projects in the most tax-efficient manner.
- Advising clients on tax-free Section 1031 exchanges including reverse exchanges, parking arrangements construction and built-to-suit exchanges, and “drop and swap” transactions involving partnerships.
- Evaluating dealer versus investor tax status, and planning to achieve long-term capital gains treatment.
- Assisting clients who sell their real properties to REITs in UPREIT transactions.
- Assisting clients to donate appreciated real estate to charities and other nonprofit entities, and assisting clients with UBTI issues.
- Assisting clients to maximize their property’s depreciation and amortization deductions.
- Tax planning strategies for developing real estate projects and converting apartments to condominiums.