Roberts & Holland LLP

An extensive part of our practice is concentrated in all aspects of the tax-sensitive real estate industry. We work with major investors and developers in every segment of commercial real estate, from construction, leasing, and financing to acquisitions, dispositions, and complex restructurings. Our clients are among the world’s largest closely held developers and family-controlled partnerships, as well as publicly traded U.S. and foreign institutions, such as REITs, banks, insurance companies, and pension funds.

We have long been at the leading edge of structuring sophisticated transactions, including tax-free exchanges, sale-leasebacks, and installment sales. We have developed novel solutions using flexible ownership structures, such as tiered partnerships, split-ownership interests, separation of land and building, equity leases and international joint ventures. We have structured domestic and international real estate investment funds that deal with the problems of both foreign and exempt investors. Our attorneys have worked extensively with financing techniques employing “securitization” of commercial real estate and interest-rate and foreign currency hedges.

We have always been at the forefront of the like-kind exchange rules. We have developed creative refinements to many like-kind exchange formats, including different forms of deferred and reverse exchanges. We have dealt with related party exchanges, and exchanges of partial interests in property, both within and without the tenancy-in-common context, as well as an array of safe harbor parking transactions, including multiple parking within a single exchange. We work closely with real estate attorneys and qualified intermediaries. Two of our partners authored the Bloomberg Tax Portfolio: Tax-free Exchanges Under Section 1031.

Our in-depth knowledge of real estate and partnership taxation has also enabled us to assume a leadership position in helping clients access the capital markets through REITs. We have advised both property owners and REITs on UPREIT acquisitions and have been involved in major roll-up transactions. In addition to structuring initial property transfers, suggesting practical solutions to management and services issues, securing rulings from the National Office of the IRS, and rendering tax opinions, we assist REITs with their ongoing operations and compliance issues. Our clients have used private REITs in innovative ways, and we have also used the REIT structure in the foreign context, for the ownership of offshore properties, as well as to deal with problems related to the ownership of troubled U.S. properties by foreign investors. We have also represented publicly held REITs and acquirers in “going private” transactions.

We enjoy a widely respected reputation for dealing with the many transactional taxes that New York State and City apply to the ownership of real property. This includes buying, leasing, financing, refinancing, developing and disposing of properties or entities that own New York real property. Because of the breadth of our experience, we are often called upon to work with government officials and legislative committees to develop statutory provisions, regulations and administrative solutions to industry problems.

Our representation of entrepreneurs and closely held clients extends to the estate and family tax planning area. Our estate planning attorneys combine broad real estate experience with tax expertise to achieve a client’s personal and business objectives in the most tax-efficient fashion. Through the use of techniques such as partnership freezes, “defective” grantor trusts and fractionalized ownership interests, we integrate tax, estate and business planning at a level of sophistication that we believe is unparalleled.

Our attorneys are active in bar association and real estate industry activities and write regular columns on current tax developments affecting real estate. One of our partners is on the Board of Governors and chairs the Tax Policy Committee of the Real Estate Board of New York, and another has been on the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors of NAREIT, the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts.