26th Annual Advanced Real Estate Seminar 2022

This presentation will provide 10 practice pointers for real estate attorneys, to help dispel myths about eminent domain and ensure that attorneys provide important information to their clients involved in a taking. Topics will include important legal developments, condemnation provisions in leases, lenders’ rights, lost business profits, and more. 

Opportunity Zones were created under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, to stimulate economic development and job creation, by incentivizing long-term investments in low-income neighborhoods. This session will discuss updates to the law and applications to real estate legal practitioners.

State of the Market and Local Policy: Accessory Dwelling Units in the Commonwealth of Virginia
Terry L. Clower, Mel Jones, Jonathan Knopf

Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) are an increasingly popular innovation to solve a range of housing challenges faced by communities across the country. While they remain fairly scarce in Virginia, many policymakers and developers in the state hope to make them a more common part of our neighborhoods to add lower-cost housing options, keep families together, and generate new revenue for property owners. This panel will share the results of a recent study commissioned by the General Assembly to investigate the legal, land use, financial, and construction issues that need resolution for the opportunity to expand the supply of ADUs in the Commonwealth. Special attention will be paid to the role of zoning and other local regulatory schemes.

The Real Estate Section of the Virginia State Bar Board of Governors and Area Representatives, under the initiative of former Chairperson Kay Creasman, have lovingly filtered through more than fifty years’ worth of Virginia Legal Ethics Opinions that pertain to topics of interest to the real estate practitioner. These folks were very eager to pass along some of the joy derived from reviewing the written product of old lawyers opining on riveting legal conundrums, culminating in these presentations on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. From LEO 183 to 1896, these are the ethics opinions that may matter the most, presented to you in two one-hour sessions from the perspective of your everyday average attorney.

This Friday afternoon session will review more than sixty LEOs that address conflicts of interest in the real estate arena, along with the Disciplinary Rules of the Virginia Code of Professional Responsibility and the Rules of Professional Conduct invoked in the opinions. This synopsis hopefully will provide a refresher course on staying above board (bored?) and above average in the ethical representation of our clients.

This Saturday morning session will review many of the greatest hits from the real estate genre of LEOs. These are the enduring opinions that get played over and over again, the most recognized real estate ethics tunes of the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, ’00s, ’10s, and today.

The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) was enacted on January 1, 2021, and is targeted at small, privately held business entities. The CTA requires these organizations to report their “beneficial owners” and “applicants” to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in an attempt to prevent the use of shell companies to evade anti-money-laundering rules or to hide other illegal activities. Learn how this new law will impact your real estate practice.

In light of the tragedy of the Surfside Condo collapse in Miami Beach, condo boards need to understand their fiduciary obligations to the condo’s owners and the maintenance and repair requirements under law for common elements of the condo building. This session will review these obligations under the Virginia Condominium Act and related statutes. Learn how best to advise your condo board clients to help protect the lives in their condominium buildings.