Property & Real Estate Law
Title, transactions, development and possession — for owners, developers, landlords and lenders.
Detailed overview
Nearly every serious property dispute traces back to a document that was never checked. Our transactional work is built around that: title verification, encumbrance searches, chain-of-ownership review and approvals confirmation, completed before money moves.
For developers and institutional owners we structure acquisitions and development agreements, negotiate leases, and manage the regulatory approvals that determine whether a project is buildable at all.
The team also litigates property disputes — title, partition, possession, specific performance and landlord-and-tenant proceedings — which keeps the transactional side realistic about how documents actually behave under challenge.
- Title due diligence, searches and legal opinions
- Sale, purchase and conveyancing documentation
- Commercial and residential leases and licences
- Development, joint-development and construction agreements
- Land-use, zoning and regulatory approvals
- Landlord-and-tenant disputes and eviction proceedings
- Partition, possession and specific performance suits
- Mortgages, charges and security enforcement
Why you might need this service.
If one of these describes your situation, a short conversation will establish whether there is a matter worth pursuing.
You are buying property and need the title verified before you commit funds.
A development agreement needs structuring between landowner and builder.
A tenant is in breach and possession has to be recovered lawfully.
Ownership of a property is being disputed by a co-owner or third party.
The attorneys handling property & real estate law.
Title defect identified before completion on a development site
- The challenge
- Our review of the ownership chain found an unresolved succession interest three transfers back. The interest had never been extinguished, and the seller was not aware of it. Any structure built on the site would have been exposed to a claim from the successors.
- The outcome
- The seller obtained releases from four of the five successors over five months. The fifth interest was resolved by a negotiated payment funded from a retention against the purchase price. Completion proceeded with clean title.
Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter. Every case turns on its own facts and applicable law.
“Elena walked us away from a site we badly wanted because the approvals chain did not close. It cost us a quarter. Eighteen months later that project is in litigation between other parties and we are not in it.”
Before you make contact.
Submit the consultation form on this site, call the office, or email our intake address. We aim to acknowledge every enquiry within one business day and to offer an appointment within three. Where a matter is time-critical — an arrest, an injunction, a deadline that expires this week — say so in your first message and we will treat it accordingly.
A named partner or senior associate is responsible for every file and remains your point of contact throughout. Work is delegated within the team where it is efficient to do so — document review does not need partner time — but supervision does not move, and you will always know who is accountable.
Depending on the matter: hourly at the rate of the lawyer doing the work, a fixed fee for defined scopes such as documentation or a licence application, or a retainer for continuing advisory work. Whichever applies, you receive a written engagement letter setting out the basis, the rate and the estimate before any chargeable work begins.
Yes, directly, and at the first opportunity. A candid assessment early is worth considerably more than an encouraging one that changes eight months and a large invoice later. Where a case is weak we will explain why, and whether anything can be done to strengthen it.
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Speak to the property & real estate law team.
Describe what has happened in a few sentences. We will tell you whether it is a matter we should take, what it would involve, and what it would cost.
- Direct line
- +1 (212) 555-0142
- Response time
- Every enquiry acknowledged within one business day.