When a borrower fails to meet its loan obligations, the lender may try to foreclose on the property securing the loan. “Foreclosure” is just the series of steps a lender has to take in order to force the sale of such property and use the sale proceeds to recover its unpaid debt. This is simple enough …
How do you feel about a criminal conviction on your record? Defending against a civil suit for intentional infliction of emotional damage? They don’t sound too bad? Well, how about a fistfight with a tenant on the front lawn of your rental property? If you’d prefer to avoid these scenarios, it might be a good …
Buying at the tail end of the housing bubble in early 2006, an old professor of mine bought more house than he should have. After a divorce and an expensive health issue, he just couldn’t make the loan payments anymore. In fact, he admitted that he was nearly insolvent. He’d taken a second loan secured …
Arms length transactions are important to understand in commercial real estate, particularly for lenders. To see why, consider the following scenario. Suppose you’re the lender to an LLC formed to acquire an office building. However, after closing the loan, you discover that the LLC’s managing member is the brother of the seller. It turns out the brothers conspired to transfer …
You’re considering the purchase of a particular property, but know it doesn’t conform to the city’s zoning ordinance. As such, you’ve negotiated the purchase contract so that closing is conditional upon you first being able to bring the property, and your intended use of it, into compliance. What type of application do you make? Rezone it …
Why is zoning important? Zoning laws determine what kind of structures can be built, whether or not an existing property can be re-purposed, and even whether or not an existing structure can be replaced with something new at all. Of course, even if these aren’t changes you are currently considering, you might have a neighbor trying …
The concept of zoning is fairly simple. A governing body enacts laws to create districts within its jurisdiction and regulations to govern the uses and structures inside those districts. The creation of these districts and regulations are designed to serve the jurisdiction’s general welfare by promoting growth and development in accordance with the body’s planning …
Everyone enjoys a surprise now and then. That is, everyone except commercial real estate owners who just discovered their ability to use and develop their property has been severely limited without their consent. The neighbor claims it has the right to drive delivery trucks across the owner’s parking lot. Another neighbor asserts it has the …
Equity waterfall models in commercial real estate projects are one of the most difficult concepts to understand in all of real estate finance. Cash flow from a development or investment project can be split in a countless number of ways, which is part of the reason why real estate waterfall models can be so confusing. …