Real Estate

Subscribe to Real Estate via RSS

In the world of real estate development, parties creating and negotiating real property documents—leases, easements, or purchase agreements—must exercise a great deal of care to ensure that the documents perform exactly their intended function at the time they are operative. Careful drafting can serve another end—to anticipate the developer’s future engagement with the relevant permitting…

[1/2/2025 UPDATE] Since the date this article was originally posted, the City has issued the summary document, which can be found here.

On December 12, 2023, Seattle’s former City Council passed Ordinance 126982 in an effort to increase commercial rent affordability for small businesses. The Ordinance, returned unsigned by the Mayor, became law on…

Originally published by the Daily Journal of Commerce on March 5, 2024.

In the ever-evolving landscape of business, flexibility is paramount. The recent widespread adoption of remote work has led companies across the country to shed office space. As companies navigate changes in market dynamics, the ability to flexibly manage real estate assets becomes increasingly valuable.

Adding solar energy facilities to a rooftop or a parking lot can put developed land to even more productive use while creating value for a property via a new revenue stream—rent payments—or from the energy savings and environmental benefits realized by using the generated power on site. Though similar to typical commercial leases and to…

In addition to Washington’s real estate excise tax (REET), transferors of ownership interests in entities that own real property in Washington must also factor in Washington’s capital gains tax when making such transfers.  The Washington Supreme Court upheld the capital gains tax as a constitutional excise tax earlier this year. See Quinn v. State, 1 Wn.3d 453, 526 P.3d 1 (2023). The tax is a flat tax of 7% of all adjusted long-term capital gains over $250,000 allocated to the state. RCW 82.87.010.

Gains from the sale of real estate are generally exempt from Washington’s capital gains tax. RCW 82.87.050(1). The tax also does not apply to the sale or exchange of an interest in a privately held entity, if the gain or loss from such sale or exchange is attributable to real estate directly owned by such entity.  RCW 82.87.050(2). But what does this mean in the context of multi-tiered ownership structures, where a party desires to sell membership interests in a subsidiary that owns real estate?

In the busy world of commercial real estate, buyers and sellers may be unable to complete all contractual obligations before closing. In those instances, parties often identify certain “post-closing” matters in the contract. Typically, if those provisions are not carefully drafted to “survive” the closing, then the terms may merge with the deed and be deemed satisfied at closing. However, in a 2022 Oregon case, Freeborn v. Dow, the Oregon Court of Appeals identified a nuance to that rule and explained that certain contractual matters may survive closing and not merge with the deed, regardless of the presence or lack of a survival clause.

Washington’s legislators had their eye on common interest communities (CICs) during the 2023 regular session, which ended on April 23, 2023. Three bills relating to or affecting CICs become effective on July 23, 2023. One became effective immediately. Here is a brief summary of the new laws.

Originally published by the Daily Journal of Commerce on February 28, 2023.

Owning or developing a parcel of contaminated real property, or a “brownfield,” has historically been a risky endeavor. But brownfields are abundant in the United States, and there are several incentives available to those who develop clean energy facilities on a dirty project…

Originally published by the Daily Journal of Commerce on December 6, 2022.

With more and more corporate tenants and institutional owners looking to reduce their carbon footprints, clean energy improvements in initial project development as well as upgrades to existing projects have become more appealing. However, with interest rates and material costs on the rise…