Many commercial real estate land parcels in New York are held through a long-term ground lease structure. This includes approximately 100 co-op buildings in New York City that are located on property that is ground leased....more
The King’s speech announced a new Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill ‘to reform the housing market by making it cheaper and easier for leaseholders to purchase their freehold and tackling the exploitation of millions of...more
The problem - You are the landlord of a residential block in England. The flats in the block were sold on long leases. Each lease reserves a ground rent of £250 a year payable in two instalments every six months....more
A ground lease is both a conveyance and a contractual agreement between a landlord (the ground lessor) and a tenant (the ground tenant) pursuant to which the ground lessor, as the fee owner of the real property, conveys a...more
On March 30, 2022, the New York State Supreme Court, New York County (the “Court”) decided in Times Square JV LLC v. Walber Broadway LLC that a ground lease-tenant that is in default under the ground lease for failure to pay...more
In this episode of Digging Into Land Use Law, Nossaman Real Estate Group Co-Chair David Graeler and associate Maya Hamouie discuss myriad problems that may arise when a market rent adjustment provision in a long-term ground...more
Once the building on a ground-leased property is completed, the ground landlord has a very secure rent stream. While the rent under the ground lease is based on the value of the unimproved land, if the ground tenant defaults...more
As a commercial leasing attorney, I have nervously and carefully been watching the leasing industry during this pandemic that we call the new normal. After a lull in leasing activity, I am happy to report that as of the...more
In my last post, “Real Estate Alphabet Soup: F is for Foreclosure” I continued my primer on the “alphabet soup” of real estate. This post continues to stir the “alphabet soup” with the letter “G.”...more
“Because ground leases typically have terms of up to 99 years, landlords and tenants need to consider all the various circumstances that might change over such a long period of time. For instance, in the last 99 years there...more
Ground leases are fairly common but sometimes overlooked property interests. A succinct but adequate definition of a ground lease was articulated by Herbert Thorndike Tiffany (Tiffany on Real Property § 85.50 [3d ed.]) as...more
The Federal Communications Commission recently closed a spectrum auction that raised more than $41 billion. Among the companies making a large investment in the auction was Verizon. It reportedly spent $10.4 billion for this...more