Businesses and individuals engaged in housing development must anticipate and respond to rapidly changing laws and regulations, as well as market pressures and trends. In order to succeed, they rely on informed counsel with industry experience.

Perkins Coie’s Real Estate attorneys have handled some of the most significant housing development projects across the United States, including large-scale residential and mixed-use urban and suburban communities. We provide guidance on the broadest range of legal, business, and regulatory matters to clients including development companies, lenders, investors, real estate investment trusts, state and local agencies, senior housing providers, universities, and individual landowners.

Clients turn to us for transactional assistance with property acquisition, disposition, leasing, and financing, as well as related business and corporate proceedings such as entity structure and formation. Our broad scope of work includes:

• Advising on overall transaction structures/methods
• Securing land use entitlements (including general plan amendments, zoning ordinance amendments, specific plans, use permits, variances)
• Real estate and environmental due diligence
• Leasing
• Negotiating purchase and sale agreements and disposition agreements
• Real estate financing
• Public-private partnerships
• Tax-deferred exchanges

As counsel to developers, we secure entitlements and defend those approvals in litigation. We also advise clients on compliance with state and federal environmental laws, including the following:

• Brownfields and hazardous site remediation
• Compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), including use of CEQA streamlining provisions
• Defending entitlements in litigation brought under CEQA, California planning and zoning laws, and other statutes
• Obtaining water, air, protected species, coastal development, and other environmental permits

The firm’s experience and commitment to the industry provide us with an exceptional understanding of market factors and our clients’ business and legal issues. Together with our geographic breadth, this experience allows us to provide services efficiently and look for practical and creative ways to meet client objectives.

Real estate involves workers on every level; we provide counsel on labor and employment law matters affecting our housing clients, including employee discipline and discharge, employee rights and privacy, employee handbooks and policies, wage-and-hour issues, medical accommodations and leaves, and hiring practices. Our representations also include litigation matters and administrative proceedings, including employment discrimination lawsuits, noncompete agreement lawsuits, and discrimination charges before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and state anti-discrimination agencies.

Litigators in our practice assist clients on risk mitigation concerning the development and operation of senior housing facilities. When litigation cannot be avoided, we assist senior housing clients in federal and state court disputes, mediation, arbitration, and regulatory proceedings involving individual lawsuits and class actions. We have specific experience defending consumer protection, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and related claims by residents and resident groups. Our litigation roster includes attorneys who focus on counseling tax-exempt organizations, including tax-exempt assisted living facilities and tax-exempt organizations that support assisted living facilities on a wide variety of issues.

Serving as trusted partners to our clients, we routinely provide mission-critical information for our clients’ business. For example, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic we have provided timely and regular updates to our clients on related legislation and regulation.

Areas of Focus