Real Estate Transactions in Virginia

Neil S. Kessler, co-editor of the 2008, 2012, and 2015 editions of this book, is a partner in the Richmond office of Troutman Sanders LLP. He has represented clients in various types of commercial real estate transactions for more than 40 years, with an emphasis in property and casualty insurance, financing, leasing, development, and construction. Mr. Kessler is a former cochair of the Committee on Design and Construction Contracts and the Property, Casualty and Other Non-Title Insurance Committee of the Section of Real Property, Probate and Trust Law of the American Bar Association. He is the author of the Virginia law section of the ABA publication entitled A State-By-State Guide to Construction and Design Law and a chapter on insurance for a publication of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Mr. Kessler is a past Chair of the Real Estate Section of the Virginia State Bar and is currently a member of its Board of Governors. He is a former member of the Board of Governors and is a current member of the Insurance Committee of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers. He is also a member of the Program Committee of the International Council of Shopping Centers Law Conference. Mr. Kessler has been elected as a member of the Virginia Commonwealth University Real Estate Circle of Excellence and as a Fellow of the Virginia Bar Foundation and the American Bar Foundation. He serves as a member of the Law School Professionalism Program faculty sponsored by the Virginia State Bar’s Standing Committee on Professionalism and the Section on the Education of Lawyers. Mr. Kessler has been recognized as a Leader of the Law by Virginia Lawyers Weekly, as one of the Best Lawyers in America and in the International Who’s Who in Real Estate Law. He received his undergraduate degree with honors from Washington & Lee University and his law degree with honors from The George Washington University. He is a frequent continuing legal education lecturer.

Paul H. Melnick, co-editor of this book and author of Chapters 8 and 9, is a principal of Melnick & Melnick, PLC, where he focuses his practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning, and estate/trust administration. Mr. Melnick earned a B.S. from James Madison University and a J.D. summa cum laude from the University of Dayton. He has been a member of the Virginia State Bar since 1990 and a member of its Real Property Section since 2005. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Governors of the Real Property Section, and has served as an Area Representative, the Secretary-Treasurer, the Vice-Chair, and the Chair of the Section. He currently serves on the 4th District Disciplinary Committee, Section I, and on the Arlington County Board of Zoning Appeals.

Paul A. Bellegarde, author of Chapter 17, is both an attorney and licensed real estate broker, with nearly 30 years of combined litigation, transactional and general-counsel experience in matters involving some of the Mid-Atlantic region’s largest builders, lenders, brokerage firms, management companies and property owners/landlords/developers. After graduating with honors from Boston College in 1982, and earning his JD from The Dickinson School of Law (Pennsylvania State University) in 1986, Mr. Bellegarde began his career in Baltimore, Maryland, with Cable, McDaniel, Bowie and Bond, a downtown firm that is now the Maryland office of Richmond-based McGuireWoods. In 1991 he joined the Washington-area-based law firm of Shulman, Rogers, Gandal, Pordy & Ecker, PA, where he became a partner in 1998, and over a 12-year span maintained a sophisticated commercial and real-estate-related litigation and transactional practice covering a broad range of complex statutory and common law issues, which involved some of the firm’s most prominent real estate clients, while also serving as Chairman of the firm’s landlord-tenant, brokerage and property management practice groups. Licensed to practice law in Virginia, Maryland and DC, Mr. Bellegarde has handled proceedings at the federal, state and administrative levels, while also having litigated in the state courts of West Virginia, Delaware and California. From 2003 through March 2006, he was Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Zalco Realty, Inc., a Silver Spring (MD) based real estate firm with commercial and residential operations throughout the Baltimore/Washington/Richmond corridor.

Mr. Bellegarde presently serves as outside general counsel to several Washington-area-based real estate companies and also maintains his own commercial real estate brokerage company, which he uses in tandem with his law practice to provide combined brokerage and legal services to his commercial clients. Mr. Bellegarde has also passed Virginia’s licensing examination for Class “A” Builders (New Construction) and in that regard is the designated Virginia licensee-manager for a high-end boutique custom homebuilding firm based in Bethesda, Maryland.

Mr. Bellegarde is a former Chair and multi-term member of the Board of Governors for the Virginia State Bar's Real Property Section and has also written several articles for publications such as the Washington Business Journal, the Maryland Daily Record, and the Virginia State Bar’s semiannual Fee Simple publication. He is also a licensed law instructor through the Virginia Real Estate Commission, and has also been similarly approved by several other Mid-Atlantic real-estate licensing boards, including those of Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia. He has also lectured numerous times at seminars, conferences or other functions for various national and regional associations and organizations (including without limitation, for Virginia Continuing Legal Education) on matters of current market or legal interest.

Kay Creasman, author of Chapter 12, is Virginia Counsel and Assistant Vice President for Old Republic National Title Company. Ms. Creasman received a J.D. from the University of Richmond, a M.Ed. from Tulane University, and a B.S. from Athens College. Since 1976, she has, at various times, maintained a private law practice in the Richmond area focusing on real estate, small business matters, and wills; owned and operated a high volume title insurance and non-attorney settlement agency; been employed by national underwriters as counsel in Virginia and West Virginia; searched title in the record rooms; and spoken at numerous seminars on real estate and title insurance. Ms. Creasman is a past president of the Virginia Land Title Association (VLTA), the 2010 recipient of the VLTA Distinguished Service Award, and an active member of the Board of Governors of the Real Estate Section of the Virginia State Bar.

Douglass W. Dewing, author of Chapters 5 and 6, is a Commercial Underwriting Counsel for the Virginia National Commercial Services office, operating under the umbrella of the Fidelity National Title Group as an underwriting office for Chicago Title, Commonwealth Land Title and Fidelity Title. After earning an undergraduate degree from Washington and Lee University and a law degree from the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, Mr. Dewing entered private practice in 1982. He entered the title insurance industry in 1987. He has authored A Virginia Title Examiners’ Manual (3d ed. 1998) and articles on many topics involving title to real property. Mr. Dewing has been a member of several continuing education panels on real estate title and title insurance topics for various groups including Virginia CLE. He is a former Chair of the Real Property Section of the Virginia State Bar. Mr. Dewing is also a member of the American Bar Association, the Virginia Bar Association, and the Norfolk-Portsmouth Bar Association.

John A. Dezio, author of Chapter 10, received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Virginia. He is a former Commonwealth’s Attorney for the County of Albemarle and an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney for the City of Charlottesville. He has served on the Mid-year Seminar Committee, the Seventh District Committee, the Fee Dispute Committee for the Sixteenth Circuit, and the Committee of Lawyer Discipline (COLD), ex officio. He has been a member of the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Committee and has served as its Chairman.

John W. Farrell, primary author of Chapter 16, is a principal in the law firm of McCandlish & Lillard, P.C. with over 45 years of experience before county supervisors, planning commissions and boards of zoning appeals in matters of real estate development, land use and environmental regulation, including rezoning, site plan and wetlands approvals. He has represented landowners and developers in innumerable land use and environmental cases and controversies including comprehensive planning, infrastructure financing and bonding and microbial, asbestos and lead contamination issues. Among those represented are the applicant in the largest rezoning ever filed in Northern Virginia which included 26 million square feet of nonresidential space and 2,266 dwelling units. He also represented two dozen plaintiff/ landowners in both the Fairfax County C&I and the Loudoun down-zoning litigation.

Mr. Farrell has extensive experience representing lenders and borrowers in transactions involving real estate acquisition, construction and development loans. These projects have included the acquisition, development, leasing and sale of mixed-use communities, condominium and residential projects, commercial and retail properties, the sale of REO, negotiation of workouts, and foreclosure of non-performing loans. Mr. Farrell’s environmental law and regulatory background includes matters involving lender liability, CERCLA, RCRA, Clean Air, asbestos, lead, underground storage tanks, wetlands regulation, and the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act. He was selected by Virginia Business, based on a statewide survey of practicing attorneys, as one of the 300 best business attorneys in Virginia in the areas of Real Estate/Land Use and Environmental Law.

Mr. Farrell is a lecturer/instructor in real estate, land use, and environmental law for the Virginia Law Foundation, the Northern Virginia Building Industry Association and the National Business Institute. He is the former chairman of the Planning Board of the Town of Walpole, Massachusetts. He is also the past chairman of the Land Use, Environment and Transportation Committee of the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce. He has also served on the State Legislative Committee of the Home Builders Association of Virginia. A 30-year resident of Reston, Virginia, Mr. Farrell is a past national President of Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation and a past President of the Fairfax County Girls Softball League. He served on the Building Committee of Christ the Redeemer Church of Sterling, Virginia. He is a graduate of Boston College and New England School of Law and is admitted to practice in Virginia and Massachusetts.

Jack C. Hanssen, co-author of Chapter 2, is an attorney at Moyes & Associates, PLLC, in Leesburg, Virginia, where a large part of his practice is devoted to real estate matters. His practice includes commercial and residential real estate transactions and litigation, as well as business and trust and estate work. In addition to commercial lease transactions and routine landlord-tenant matters, he has assisted clients with complex real estate transactions. He has worked on a private placement offering to fund the construction of a physician-owned medical office building and a hospital ground lease. In recent years, he has assisted clients to donate conservation easements on thousands of acres across Loudoun County and Fauquier County and helped them with the Land Preservation Credit Application process.

Mr. Hanssen received his undergraduate degree from The College of William and Mary and his law degree from Notre Dame Law School. During law school, he clerked for Federal Magistrate Judge John Facciola, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He lives in Leesburg on a small farm with his wife and three sons where they are active members of St. John the Apostle Catholic Church.

Leslie A.T. Haley, author of Chapter 1, is currently providing legal ethics and law office management advice and counsel to lawyers and law firms. Ms. Haley is the former Senior Assistant Ethics Counsel for the Virginia State Bar where she spent fourteen years primarily advising Virginia lawyers on questions of ethics and lawyer advertising as well as unauthorized practice of law issues. She was staff liaison to the Legal Ethics Committee and drafted numerous advisory ethics opinions. She is a frequent author and lecturer on various CLE topics both in Virginia and on a national level.

Ms. Haley is a 2015 Fellow of the Virginia Law Foundation, Immediate Past- President of the Greater Richmond Bar Foundation board, a member of the Lewis F. Powell, Jr. American Inn of Court and a past-president of the MetroABOUT politan Richmond Women’s Bar Association. She is also a 2010 recipient of the Influential Women of Virginia Award.

Edmund D. Harllee, author of Chapter 13, is a shareholder in Williams Mullen’s Tysons Corner office. A former in-house counsel for a large multijurisdictional regional Bank in the Washington, D.C. area, Mr. Harllee advises financial institutions in such areas as bank operations, payments systems, forgeries and other fraud, credit and debit cards, and stored-value cards, as well as a wide range of online banking and cash management products, including mobile phone banking, remote deposits, ACH and wire transactions, positive-pay, and sweep arrangements. He also counsels these clients on consumer and non-consumer regulatory compliance, both federal and state, for all types of banking services. In addition to counseling banking and other commercial clients on the impact of the new Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 on their products and operations, Ed has significant experience in advising these clients on compliance with federal regulations, such as Regulations B (Equal Credit Opportunity), D (Reserves), E (Electronic Funds Transfers), Z (Truth-in- Lending), CC (Expedited Funds Availability) and DD (Truth-in-Savings), as well as state laws, such as Uniform Commercial Code Articles 3 (negotiable instruments), 4 (bank deposits and collections), 4A (funds transfers), 5 (letters of credit), and 9 (secured transactions). As a transactional attorney, Mr. Harllee represents a significant number of financial institutions in connection with a wide variety of lending transactions, including commercial real estate loans, U.S. Government receivables and other asset-based loans, construction loans, mezzanine financing, syndicated loans and loan participations. When loans become troubled assets, he represents lenders in work-outs and restructurings, having represented financial institutions through several economic downturns. Mr. Harllee also serves as local counsel to other lenders throughout the U.S. in connection with such transactions. He is frequently called upon to draft “shelf” documentation for these services, and to review documentation for compliance with federal and local state law. Mr. Harllee is a co-author of Williams Mullen’s Dodd-Frank alerts, as well as such publications as Real Estate Transactions in Virginia, published by the Virginia CLE, and District of Columbia Commercial Lending Law, published by the American Bar Association. He is listed in the Best Lawyers in America under Banking and Finance Law.

Michael A. Inman, author of Chapter 18, has lived in Virginia Beach and has been practicing law in the Hampton Roads area for over 40 years primarily in the areas of real estate, business and community association law. He is a principal in the law firm of Inman & Strickler, P.L.C., located on Lynnhaven Parkway which has 12 attorneys who practice in various areas of the law. He and his community association practice group represent over 250 community associations in Southeast Virginia and he is a frequent speaker on community association topics. Mr. Inman is a member of the local chapter of the Community Associations Institute, (CAI) which is a resource for all persons interested in the operations of condominiums and homeowners associations.

Mr. Inman was a member of CAI's Legislative Action Committee for the state of Virginia for over 20 years and was selected for membership in CAI's College of Community Association Lawyers in 2008. He has prepared governing documents for developers of over 100 condominiums, homeowners association, and planned unit developments. Mike is involved in community activities through his service as a member of the Virginia Beach Planning Commission, his membership in Virginia Beach Vision, a group of local business leaders, the Town Center Kiwanis Club and also as former Chairman of the Board of Seton Youth Shelters, a charitable organization which provides shelter and counseling to at risk youth.

C. Grice McMullan, author of Chapter 11, has conducted a real estate, corporate, and commercial law practice for approximately 40 years. About 50 percent of his time is spent on commercial real estate matters, with the remainder of his time spent in the practice of general corporate and commercial law. His practice in commercial real estate law is a general one, ranging from real estate financing law and industrial site development to condominium law. Mr. McMullan received a B.A. in English from the University of Virginia in 1961 and an LL.B. from the University of Virginia in 1967. In 1974, He co-founded ThompsonMcMullan PC, a commercial law firm of thirty-one attorneys. Mr. McMullan was admitted to the Virginia Bar in 1967 and the New York Bar in 1969.

Mr. McMullan is a member of the Richmond Bar Association, the Virginia Bar Association Real Estate Council, the American Bar Association, and the Real Property, Probate and Trust, and Business Law Sections of the ABA. He is a former member of the Real Estate Section Executive Committee of the Richmond Bar and a former Executive Committee member of Meritas, a world-wide affiliation of mid-sized commercial law firms, having also served as the co-chair of its Real Estate Section. During 2006-2007, Mr. McMullan was the chair of the Board of Governors for the Real Estate Section of the Virginia State Bar, and from 2009 to 2011, he was the Chair of the Real Estate Section Council of the Virginia Bar Association. He currently serves as a Virginia-area representative for the Virginia State Bar and remains as a member of the Virginia Bar Association Council.

Mr. McMullan has often lectured in the past on matters pertaining to real estate law and has authored or co-authored numerous articles pertaining to the same.

Charles L. Menges, co-author of Chapter 14, is a partner at McGuireWoods LLP and counsels clients on business transactions, primarily in the real estate industry and in the banking and finance sector. Resident in the Richmond office, his practice ranges from locally based matters to multistate and national transactions to international projects.

In the real estate area, Mr. Menges handles commercial real estate transactions of all types including the sale, purchase, development, financing, leasing and management of both unimproved land and existing commercial projects. He also represents clients in connection with planned communities such as residential subdivisions, golf course communities and mixed-use projects. He has extensive experience representing real estate investment trusts, and in forming and representing joint ventures and other types of entities in the real estate industry. He also has extensive experience representing owners and developers of hotels and resorts, including negotiating purchase and sale agreements, management agreements and franchise agreements, as well as advising hotels, private resort clubs and other hospitality clients on meeting contracts, vendor relationships, membership issues and other matters.

In the banking and finance area, Mr. Menges represents institutional lenders and corporate borrowers in a variety of financing transactions, whether real estate-based or otherwise, including asset-based loans, unsecured investment grade lending, syndicated credits of various types, synthetic lease transactions, M&A financings, conduit lending/securitization, sale of loan portfolios, loan workouts and restructuring, and portfolio mortgage loans. He co-chairs the firm’s Opinion Committee.

Mr. Menges received his undergraduate degree from the College of William & Mary and his law degree from the University of Virginia. He is a member of the Virginia State Bar, The Virginia Bar Association, the American Bar Association and the American College of Real Estate Lawyers (ACREL). He chairs the ACREL Hotels, Resorts and Hospitality Committee, and he is chair of the Committee on Legal Opinions in Real Estate Transactions of the ABA Real Property Trust and Estate Law Section. Mr. Menges lectures fre quently on opinion practice, issues in the finance and hospitality industries, and other topics.

E. Kristen Moye, author of Chapter 7, is a partner in the McLean, Virginia office of McGuireWoods LLP where she is a member of the Debt Finance Department. Ms. Moye concentrates her practice on transactional work for financial institutions with a focus on real estate finance and commercial lending. She represents national and regional banks, specialty lenders and other financial institutions in a wide variety of financing transactions, including acquisition, construction and development loans, permanent mortgage loans, loan participations and syndications, asset based loans and revolving credit facilities. Ms. Moye regularly leads large dollar, multistate real estate portfolio transactions. She has experience financing all types of real property collateral and other assets. In addition, Kristen has extensive experience representing banks and lenders in large loan work outs and complex restructuring matters, including settlements, foreclosures, note sales and REO disposition. Prior to joining McGuireWoods, Ms. Moye spent four years as in-house counsel for Ginnie Mae, where she acquired a specialized knowledge of mortgaged-backed securities. She has used this background in representing clients in connection with CMBS loan origination and securitizations and in GSE and governmental loan programs. She serves as a member of the firm’s Opinion Committee with responsibilities related to the firm’s review and issuance of bankruptcy non-consolidation opinions.

Matthew P. Rash, co-author of Chapter 14, is an associate in the Real Estate Transaction group of the Richmond, Virginia office of McGuireWoods LLP. In the banking and finance area, Mr. Rash has experience representing both lenders and borrowers in all aspects of commercial loan transactions secured by real estate and other assets, syndicated loans, loan assumptions and other credit facilities, loan workouts, foreclosures and acquisitions as well as multistate and national transactions. His clients include special servicers, real estate investment trusts, real estate foundations, institutional lenders and buyers and sellers of improved and unimproved real property.

In the real estate transaction area, Mr. Rash represents clients in the purchase and sale, financing, leasing, and management of improved and unimproved commercial real estate projects, including hotels and resorts and senior living, skilled nursing and assisted living facilities. Mr. Rash also routinely represents landlords and tenants and property developers and has extensive experience drafting purchase and sale agreements, leases, easements, and development agreements. He also works with corporations in connection with structuring financial incentives from state and local governments.

Mr. Rash received his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and his law degree from the University of Richmond. He is a former law clerk to the Honorable James R. Spencer, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 2004-2005, and is a member of the Fourth Circuit Judicial Conference. Mr. Rash is a recent speaker on Virginia foreclosures and commercial loan transactions.

Louis J. Rogers, author of chapter 15, the founder and chief executive officer of Capital Square Realty Advisors, LLC (CSRA), specializes in the creation and management of commercial real estate investment programs for Section 1031 exchange investors and cash (non-1031) investors using the Delaware Statutory Trust structure.

Also, Mr. Rogers is founder and chief executive officer of Rogers Realty Advisors, LLC, a private equity and investment banking firm that manages real estate funds and provides investment banking services for owners, operators, developers, managers and sponsors of real estate programs, including DST and tenant-in-common (TIC) programs, REITs and real estate funds. He was Managing Director – Private Programs at a national brokerdealer and CEO of a national FINRA-licensed broker dealer. He is a nationally recognized authority in structuring securities offerings for real estate investments and serves as a consultant and expert witness on Regulation D private placements, non-traded REITs, Section 1031 exchanges, DST and TIC programs, real estate funds, and issues related to broker-dealers and registered investment advisors.

In 1998, Mr. Rogers assisted in the formation of Triple Net Properties, LLC as outside legal counsel before being named president and board member in 2004. Under Mr. Rogers’ leadership, Triple Net became the nation’s largest sponsor of securitized Section 1031 exchange programs. While at the firm, he was responsible for the syndication of more than $4 billion of real estate in over 100 offerings, including DSTs, TICs, REITs and real estate funds that acquired office, government, multi-family, retail and healthcare properties throughout the United States.

From 1987 to 2004, Mr. Rogers was a partner with Hirschler Fleischer, a prestigious law firm based in Richmond, Virginia. He founded and led the firm’s Real Estate Securities Practice Group, one of the largest of its kind. Mr. Rogers earned a Bachelor of Science from Northeastern University in 1979 (with highest honors), as well as a Bachelor of Arts (with honors) in 1981 and a Master of Arts in 1985 in jurisprudence from Oxford University. He also earned a Juris Doctorate in 1984 from University of Virginia School of Law. Mr. Rogers was a member of the adjunct faculty at the Marshall- Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia from 1993 to 1996 and the University of Virginia School of Law from 1995 to 2000, where he taught “Real Estate Transactions and Finance.” He was licensed as a securities principal and broker with FINRA.

Mr. Rogers is active in many bar and real estate security trade groups. He has served as chair of the Investment Program Association’s Section 1031 Exchange Committee; founding trustee, director and chair of the Legislative and Regulatory Committee of TICA; a member of the Board of Governors of the Virginia State Bar, Real Property Section; and a member of the Real Estate Committee of the American Bar Association’s Tax Section. He serves on the Board of the Greater Richmond Association for Commercial Real Estate (GRACRE). Mr. Rogers has an AV Peer Review Rating† and was named as one of the top lawyers in Virginia in 2006 and 2008. He has written and lectured widely on real estate, tax and securities topics.

Robert A. Warwick, author of Chapter 19, who retired from active practice at the end of 2014 after over 40 years in practice, has worked closely with management in tax-efficient structuring of acquisitions, dispositions (privately and through public offerings), and internal reorganizations including transactions involving foreign businesses. Mr. Warwick has worked with tax regimes in a number of foreign countries. He has also represented corporate and other clients in tax controversies before the Internal Revenue Service, state taxing authorities, and federal and state courts, and advised clients regarding the organization and structure of profit and non-profit enterprises and business transactions. Mr. Warwick remains available to consult with other ThompsonMcMullan lawyers.

Mr. Warwick graduated With Distinction from Cornell Law School. He was a member of the Board of Editors of the Cornell Law Review and, upon graduation, was elected to the Order of the Coif. He also holds an MBA from Cornell and a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Prior to attending law school, he served as a naval officer in the Western Pacific area. Mr. Warwick is admitted to practice in Virginia and before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the U.S. Tax Court, and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. He is a member of the Richmond Bar Association and its Corporate Counsel Section.

Mr. Warwick became of counsel to Thompson McMullan following his retirement as Tax Counsel for Reynolds Metals Company where he practiced for 16 years. Prior to joining Reynolds, he spent seven years as a senior tax attorney for Ford Motor Company in Michigan and four years in private practice in Ohio.

James L. Windsor, author of Chapter 4, is the Managing Director of the Virginia Beach office of Kaufman & Canoles, P.C. and is the Chairman of the firm’s Real Estate Claims, Title Insurance and Mortgage Default Solutions Group. Mr. Windsor is an AV Preeminent-rated lawyer with over 30 years of experience and expertise in counseling and litigation involving title insurance, real property, construction, mechanics’ liens, bond claims, mortgage lending, creditors’ rights, and commercial and banking law. He earned a B.S. degree, cum laude, from James Madison University and a J.D. from the T.C. Williams School of Law at the University of Richmond. Mr. Windsor is a member of the Virginia State Bar, the American Bar Association, the Virginia Beach Bar Association, and the Virginia Land Title Association. Mr. Windsor lectures frequently before construction and real estate professionals, lenders, lawyers, and others involved in construction and real estate law. He has written a book, a law review article, and other articles on topics of interest to the construction and real estate industry. Mr. Windsor was selected by peers and recognized by Virginia Business Magazine as a member of “Virginia’s Legal Elite” in 2003, 2004, 2007-2014 in the area of Construction Law. He was also listed in Virginia Super Lawyers for 2006, 2010-2013, and 2015 in the area of Real Estate.

Clark H. Worthy, author of Chapter 3, is a partner in the commercial practice section of Gentry, Locke, Rakes & Moore, LLP. Mr. Worthy advises clients regarding commercial real estate matters including purchases, sales, leases, tax free exchanges and financings. He also handles matters involving gift and estate planning techniques and represents fiduciaries in the administration of trusts and estates trust, and matters involving sales, mergers, acquisitions, and financing of businesses. Mr. Worthy received his J.D. in 1993 from Washington and Lee University School of Law and a B.S. in Finance in 1986 from the University of Virginia, McIntire School of Commerce.

Eric V. Zimmerman, co-author of Chapter 2, is a principal of Rogan Miller Zimmerman, PLLC located in Leesburg, Virginia. He was admitted to the Virginia Bar in 1975 and currently focuses is practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning and providing general counsel to his clients. He graduated from University of Virginia with a degree in Russian Area Studies and the New England School of Law in Boston. Mr. Zimmerman has authored several articles and participated as a presenter and moderator for CLE events. He has been a member of the Real Property Section of the Virginia State Bar for over two decades, serving two terms on the Board of Governors. In 1999 he received the Tradition of Excellence Award from the Virginia State Bar in recognition of his efforts with his community, including serving as Mayor of his hometown of Purcellville.