Real Estate Purchases and Sales

Buying and selling real estate is a mainstay of our economy. In addition to agreeing on a fair market value price, buying and selling commercial or industrial real estate now entails numerous issues that must be investigated during the buyer’s due diligence, and addressed in a purchase and sale, or “acquisition” agreement. Depending on the specific circumstances of the property involved and the specific transaction deal points, real estate contracts require careful negotiation and drafting to clearly spell out key deal points like deposits, structured payments over time, financing by the seller or a third party, representations, warranties and/or covenants from the seller on issues like the physical or environmental condition of the property, or title issues, such as easements or other use restrictions. There are numerous other issues that might need to be investigated, negotiated and documented in a real estate purchase and sale agreement.

Sometimes, a dispute breaks out between the buyer and seller while the property is in escrow, i.e. after the contract is signed, but before the buyer pays their money and actually completes the purchase. When that happens, a buyer may file a lawsuit for specific performance of the contract, and will file and record a “lis pendens” or “Notice of Pending Action” with the County Recorders office, which acts as a kind of lien on the property so the seller can’t easily sell the property to another buyer. We have substantial experience representing both buyers and sellers in these kinds of lawsuits, and have also successfully brought motions for court orders “expunging” the lis pendens so the seller can be allowed to sell the property to another buyer.

When a buyer and seller fail to deal with each other with full candor and disclosure, and/or fail to properly negotiate and document their contracts, law suits often result, usually filed by a buyer who believes after the fact that there was either a breach of a representation, warranty or covenant of the contract, or that there was deception, i.e. misrepresentation and fraud in the inducement of the transaction.

Winsten Law Group has successfully litigated and settled numerous real estate breach of contract, fraud and specific performance lawsuits.

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