Advised ultra-high net worth clients on complex real estate transactions exceeding $750 million in aggregate value

Ultra-high net worth individuals, family offices, and closely held ownership groups engaged the firm to advise on high-value real estate matters involving distinctive assets, sophisticated counterparties, and substantial legal and financial risk. These engagements frequently involved:

• Legacy residential estates and trophy properties
• Large agricultural, coastal, and environmentally sensitive land holdings
• Highly regulated and access-controlled communities
• Shared ownership structures, including co-tenancies, LLCs, and family entities
• Privacy-sensitive acquisitions requiring anonymity and layered ownership structures

In many matters, legal issues arose before closing, during ownership, or in connection with a sale, including governance disputes, access and easement issues, land use constraints, lender pressure, or threatened litigation—each with the potential to materially impair value or exit options.

We advised clients through a full life-cycle real estate strategy, integrating transactional execution with ownership-phase legal risk management. Our work included:

• Structuring acquisitions, dispositions, and internal transfers using LLCs, TICs, trusts, and family-office entities
• Negotiating highly customized purchase and sale agreements, seller carrybacks, and co-ownership and governance provisions
• Navigating coastal, agricultural, and environmental regulatory frameworks affecting development and valuation
• Coordinating tax-driven transactions, including 1031 exchanges and portfolio restructurings
• Addressing ownership-phase legal issues—such as co-owner disputes, access and easement conflicts, land use challenges, and lender workouts—to stabilize assets and preserve long-term value

This integrated approach allowed clients to protect leverage, maintain optionality, and avoid value-eroding disputes.

Across numerous matters, the firm has advised buyers, sellers, lenders, and ownership groups on real estate transactions and related ownership-phase legal matters with an aggregate value exceeding $750 million, spanning residential, agricultural, coastal, commercial, and industrial assets.

Representative transactions and matters include:

• Representing ultra-high net worth buyers, sellers, and family offices in multiple eight figure luxury residential transactions in Montecito, Hope Ranch, Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Malibu, and other coastal Southern California markets, including privacy-driven acquisitions structured through LLCs and trusts
• Representing clients in dozens of transactions involving Hollister Ranch parcels, including some of the most valuable front row oceanfront properties, and advising on co-tenancy structures, access rights, governance provisions, and exit strategies unique to the Ranch
• Advising on shared ownership acquisitions, restructurings, and buyouts involving high value coastal and ranch properties, including resolution of co-owner disputes and pre-sale issue stabilization
• Representing sellers and ownership groups in mid- and upper-eight-figure agricultural and ranch property transactions, including multi-parcel holdings requiring entitlement, access, and development analysis
• Advising on eight figure commercial and industrial transactions, including historically designated properties, environmentally complex assets, seller financing, and syndicated buyers
• Representing borrowers and lenders in eight figure commercial loan workouts, restructurings, and payoffs
• Advising ultra-high net worth clients and family offices on multi-state real estate acquisitions and portfolio transactions, including properties located in Hawaii, Nebraska, Iowa, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida, coordinated with local counsel to address jurisdiction-specific regulatory, title, and tax considerations

Clients successfully closed transactions, stabilized ownership structures, resolved legal impediments arising during ownership, and preserved long-term asset value. The result reflects a sustained body of sophisticated real estate work serving ultra-high net worth clients and complex property portfolios, rather than any single transaction.