A commercial deal is a legal document sitting on top of a building, a loan and a title history. The document is the part people read. The other three are where the money usually goes.
Commercial leases arrive looking settled. Standard document, landlord's paper, sign here. They are in fact long, negotiable, and written by somebody whose interests are not yours. Personal guarantees, operating expense pass throughs, assignment restrictions and restoration obligations are all in there, and all of them are ordinary things to negotiate before signing and impossible to negotiate afterward.
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We review and negotiate the purchase agreement, work through the title commitment and the survey, handle the due diligence a commercial deal carries and a residential one does not, and prepare or review the closing documents. Entity questions, assignment rights and financing contingencies get settled on paper instead of assumed.
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Landlord or tenant, the work is the same in shape: read what the document actually obliges you to do for the next ten years, price the obligations that are not stated in dollars, and negotiate the ones that matter. Tenants tend to focus on the rent. The expensive clauses are usually somewhere else.
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The title commitment is the document nobody reads and the one most likely to cost something later, because its exceptions list what the insurer will not cover: easements, encroachments, unreleased liens, assessments. Reading it alongside the survey is how you find out whether the parking lot you are buying sits on the parcel you are buying.
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Loan documents are drafted by the lender's counsel and are negotiable more often than borrowers assume. Covenants, guarantees, cross default provisions and prepayment terms all shape what a property costs to hold. Keith Fafarman's practice covers creditor's rights and loan documentation, and that is a useful place to be reading from when you are on the borrower's side of the table.
The same order every time, because most of the expensive mistakes in this area come from doing step four before step two.
The letter of intent or the draft agreement, and what the parties actually think they have agreed, and those are often two different things.
Title, survey, existing leases, environmental questions where they apply, and the entity's authority to sign at all.
The agreement, the lease, and the loan documents, in that order of leverage.
Deeds prepared, funds released against documents and not against promises, and the instruments recorded.
Usually more than the person handing it to you suggests. Whether a particular landlord will move on a particular clause is a market question, but the answer is never known until it is asked, and asking costs nothing.
The seller's attorney represents the seller. Someone drafting a document you are going to sign is not the same as someone reading it for you.
The commitment is what the insurer says it will insure, and its exceptions are what it will not. The policy issues afterward. Almost everything worth arguing about is in the commitment.
The firm serves individuals and businesses throughout Indiana from the Lafayette office. Ask when you call about the specific county.
Yes. The firm works on both sides of commercial leasing, though never on both sides of the same transaction.
Most of what a business attorney does is unglamorous and cheap compared with what it prevents. An operating agreement written while everyone still likes each other is an afternoon. Written afterward, it is litigation.
A like kind exchange lets gain on an investment property be deferred rather than recognized at the sale. It works only if it is set up before the sale, and it runs on a clock that does not negotiate.
Most people meet a real estate attorney once, holding a contract on the largest purchase of their life, with no particular reason to trust anybody else in the room.
The rest of the practice is on the practice areas index. If you would rather judge the firm by who trusts it than by how it describes itself, look at who it works for or at who would actually be handling this.
Call 765-423-1001 to schedule an appointment, or send the details through. Bring the contract, the deed, or just the question.
Contacting Gambs, Mucker & Bauman does not create an attorney-client relationship, and nothing on this site is legal advice. Please do not send confidential information until a written engagement is in place.