Before leasing land, it is important for developers to understand the benefits of using a lease-option structure instead of jumping straight into a leasehold. By deliberately separating and sequencing the grant of rights from a landowner to a developer, parties can better manage potential reporting obligations under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA) and

Ben Criswell
Ben Criswell is an associate in Stoel Rives’ Real Estate group with a focus on energy, agriculture, and natural resource projects. He represents clients in the purchase, sale, leasing, financing, and development of real property.
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Drafting Real Estate Documents With Project Permitting in Mind
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…
Contract Drafting Tips for Rooftop Solar and Carport Solar Leases
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…
Deal Sweeteners for Clean Energy Development on Brownfield Sites
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…