Drafting Acquisition and Lease Agreements: Preparing land acquisition documents, crafting ground leases, and navigating the processes involved in selling or leasing developments

James A. Hochman | Schain, Banks, Kenny & Schwartz, Ltd

Jim represents many commercial real estate brokerage firms, landlords, tenants, and commercial real estate investors, assisting in all phases of commercial and residential real estate. He is also a licensed real estate managing broker.

Before joining Schain Banks, Jim was a Partner at two other law firms from 2005 to 2016. Prior to that, he operated a private law practice in Wheaton, Illinois concentrating in real estate and real estate related litigation. Additionally, before his return to private practice, Jim served as Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel to CBRE (formerly known as CB Richard Ellis and Coldwell Banker Commercial) for 22 years, where he represented CBRE in all aspects of its real estate services lines of business in 20 states in the Central United States. He has also served as general counsel to a real estate development firm specializing in condominium conversions, and, preceding that assignment, as branch counsel for a national title insurer.

Jim has handled hundreds perhaps thousands of residential transactions, many of which were the purchase or sale of condominium units. He represented a condominium developer in the late 1970’s handling “mass closings”, meaning the simultaneous sale of hundreds of units. Jim also represented 15 sellers of office condo units to a developer, while also negotiating the unit sellers’ lease back of their offices from the multi-unit investor, all as a prelude to the deconversion of that building.

Beyond Jim’s experience, he also actively supports license portability legislation for commercial real estate brokers, and he is the architect and drafter of statutes in several states on this issue. Further, he sponsored (and co-authored) the Illinois Commercial Real Estate Broker Lien Act.

Several states have adopted similar statutes through his drafting and lobbying efforts including Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Texas.

Jim serves as a faculty member for the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR) teaching a course in commercial real estate leases and lease negotiations. Jim taught a course at John Marshall Law School (now known as University of Illinois Chicago School of Law) in the LLM for Real Estate Law Program in Real Estate Documents and Negotiation. After 22 years of service, Jim retired as a Commander in the United States Naval Reserve with his final assignments as special assistant counsel to the U.S. Commander in Chief, Pacific Forces. President of the Blue Spring Lake Management District, a 2010 home government entity in Jefferson County, Palmyra, Wisconsin, since 2010.

I. Drafting Acquisition and Lease Agreements (With Samples) | 11:00am – 12:00pm

• Land Acquisition Documents
• Ground Leases
• Selling or Leasing the Development

Break | 12:00pm – 12:10pm

II. Conducting Title and Other Due Diligence | 12:10pm – 1:10pm

• Practical Tips for Title Review
• Reading Surveys
• Creating or Terminating Easements and Restrictive Covenants
• Finding and Addressing Environmental Issues
• Conducting Land Use and Other Due Diligence