Blog: Articles

If you own commercial property in Florida, you have probably watched your assessed values climb over the past several years and wondered whether the number on your TRIM notice actually reflects what your building is worth today. You are not imagining it. Assessments have not always kept pace with the realities on the ground, from…

A commercial lease is one of the largest and longest financial commitments most South Florida businesses ever sign. Unlike a residential lease, it is not a fill-in-the-blanks form with tenant-friendly rules baked in. It is a heavily negotiated business contract, and the version a landlord hands you first is written to protect the landlord. Effective…

Miami draws commercial real estate buyers from across the globe, and for good reason. The market is liquid, the city is a genuine gateway between the Americas and the rest of the world, and commercial property here continues to attract capital from investors who live thousands of miles away. If you are buying from abroad,…

Commercial real estate in South Florida moves quickly, and the window between an accepted offer and a closed deal is where a purchase is either protected or exposed. Once you are under contract, the due diligence period is your opportunity to confirm that the property is what the seller says it is, that it can…

Plenty of commercial property in South Florida trades because the seller wants out of one asset and into another, not because the seller wants a check. A 1031 exchange is the mechanism that makes that possible, letting an owner roll the proceeds of one investment property into another and defer the federal capital gains tax…

If you have chased a development site in Miami-Dade lately, you have probably met a landowner who will not sell. Airport and port parcels, city-owned land, institutional holdings, and family corners that have carried the same name for three generations tend to stay right where they are. What those owners will often do instead is…

Commercial lease structures are one of the most overlooked parts of a real estate transaction. Most negotiations begin with a single question — how will rent actually be calculated — and the answer depends on which of the three common frameworks the parties use: triple net, gross, or modified gross. Each allocates operating costs differently…

A right of first refusal is one of the most frequently negotiated — and most frequently misunderstood — provisions in commercial real estate. It appears in purchase agreements, commercial leases, and joint venture documents, often inserted quickly during negotiations without a full appreciation of how it will operate years later. A closely related clause, the…

A commercial real estate LOI is often the first formal step in negotiating a commercial property transaction. Before attorneys draft a full purchase agreement, buyers and sellers frequently use a Letter of Intent to outline the key terms of the proposed deal. An LOI serves as a roadmap for the transaction. It summarizes the major…

A commercial purchase agreement is the legal foundation of any commercial real estate transaction. Once signed, the agreement governs the rights, obligations, and risk allocation between the buyer and seller. While pricing and closing dates often receive the most attention, the clauses buried inside the agreement frequently determine how problems are handled if the deal…