Real Estate

Our attorneys’ experience in successfully guiding clients through complex approval processes in land use matters is unsurpassed. Our projects range from small conversions or rehabilitation of existing—and sometimes historic—buildings to new large-scale mixed-use developments involving hundreds of thousands of square feet of office uses, thousands of residential units, hotels, light industrial uses, and major single and multiple user retail facilities, as well as single users within a large mixed-use project.

We fully understand not just current, but proposed legal and policy changes that impact the development and operation of real estate. This ability to “see around corners” is especially critical in the complex and dynamic land use regulatory environment. In practicing before almost every type of California land use agency, including city councils, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and the State Lands Commission, we have represented clients in securing development approvals for projects throughout the state.

Successfully navigating the challenges of real estate financing in a constantly evolving lending environment requires counsel with an intimate knowledge of market trends and the legal and business concerns impacting the deal. Our extensive experience in real estate finance covers a broad range of financing structures and vehicles, representing lenders, borrowers, and investors. Our expertise includes structuring, negotiating, documenting, and closing:

• Conventional loans
• Construction loans
• Loans secured by ground leases
• Multi-state, multi-asset, cross-collateralized and cross-defaulted loans
• Letter of credit-supported financings
• Securitized financings
• Sale/leaseback transactions
• Mezzanine financings
• Inter-creditor agreements
• Loan participations and other co-lender arrangements
• Interest rate protection products
• Bond financings

For distressed or non-performing properties, our finance lawyers partner with our bankruptcy and litigation experts to provide strategic and practical options to protect and enhance our clients’ rights. In addition, we frequently advise potential debt purchasers and investors in evaluating loan acquisitions and investments.

With higher interest rates, maturing loans, unusual market conditions, and changing regulatory restrictions, the commercial real estate sector faces challenges different from prior economic cycles. Our team of experienced real estate, finance, bankruptcy, tax, and litigation lawyers work side-by-side to assist clients confronting a wide range of distressed situations, including in the following areas:

• Debt forbearance
• Loan workouts
• Leasing workouts
• Foreclosures (judicial actions, non-judicial sales and deed-in-lieu of foreclosure transactions)
• Restructuring and recapitalization of equity investments
• Receivership appointments
• Bankruptcy actions
• Guaranty enforcement and defenses
• Commercial debt litigation
• Lender liability claims
• Construction disputes
• Mechanics lien issues
• Entitlement defaults

Because of our deep understanding of the intricacies of each type of debt and equity investment, the rights and remedies of different stakeholders (including borrowers, lenders, investors, developers, landlords, tenants, and governmental agencies), and the unique characteristics of diverse asset types, Coblentz brings a comprehensive and creative approach to analyzing risk and identifying viable options. Whether seeking to capitalize on a distressed real estate opportunity or to protect investments or minimize liability in a defaulting loan, we provide practical guidance and effectively resolve difficult issues to achieve our client’s goals.

Working as counsel for both developers and investors, our lawyers have drafted and negotiated many highly complex joint venture agreements. By collaborating with our firm’s tax lawyers, we’re able to provide sound counsel on the many issues that arise in these relationships, including decision-making controls, allocation of guaranty risks, promote distributions, squeeze-down formulas, buy-sell rights, and other exit strategies.

The work of drafting and negotiating complex purchase and sale agreements is at the heart of our practice, and our attorneys also have deep experience in the collateral issues involved in these transactions, such as providing detailed analysis of title and survey matters, analysis of compliance with existing entitlements, counseling on development, construction and financing issues, and review and analysis of ground leases.

We have represented real estate investors and developers in the acquisition and disposition of all types of properties, including office complexes, industrial projects, multifamily residential developments, and shopping centers.

Our clients receive value not just from the land and the structures they own, but, just as importantly, from the leases they hold. We work to protect and enhance the value of a landlord’s assets no matter the market—boom, bust, or somewhere in between. We have the experience to know which lease provisions impact the value of the real estate when it is time to sell or refinance.

Coblentz has extensive experience representing both landlord and tenant interests and issues in power center, mixed-use, and neighborhood shopping centers relating to the leasing and operation by major tenants such as Target, Macy’s, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America.

Coblentz is one of the few law firms in the country with a practice dedicated to conservation transactions, and we’re proud of the work we do to preserve open space for future generations.

We’ve worked on substantial projects throughout the state, from Humboldt County to San Diego. Outside of California, we’ve provided counsel on deals in American Samoa, Colorado, Rhode Island, and Wyoming. One of our most significant projects was providing tax planning on the conveyance of two conservation easements by Ulupalakua Ranch to Maui Coastal Land Trust, the largest private land conservation transaction ever done in the State of Hawaii. It allowed for two-thirds of the ranch’s 18,000 acres to be forever preserved as agricultural and ranch lands, thereby protecting it from being sold piecemeal by future generations.