We get this question a lot: “Does Doida Crow Legal handle real estate?” The honest answer is: sometimes, depending on the shape of the deal. As a business transactions and corporate law firm, real estate rarely shows up on our desk as a stand-alone matter: it usually arrives tucked inside a business sale, a development deal, or a lease that needs a second set of eyes.
We value transparency and know that you’re better served if we’re upfront about where we add real value. Here’s how we think about the real estate work that comes our way, broken into the three situations where it typically shows up.
1. When Real Estate Is Part of a Business Sale
If you’re buying or selling a business and that deal includes a piece of real property (the building your operations run out of, a warehouse, a commercial lot), we want to be in that conversation from the start. Real estate tied up in a business transaction behaves differently than a stand-alone parcel. It affects valuation, shapes due diligence, and often drives how the whole deal gets structured. This is core to our M&A practice, and it’s work we handle regularly.
Depending on the transaction, we handle the real estate side of these transactions ourselves, right alongside the business sale. Other times, we’ll bring in real estate counsel to join the team: we continue representing you on the business sale, real estate counsel represents your interests on the property-specific pieces, and the two of us work the deal together.
What we don’t take on is a real estate sale that stands entirely on its own, unconnected to a business transaction. For that, we’re glad to point you to real estate attorneys we trust.
2. Development Projects: Building the Structure Behind the Deal
Real estate development is often as much about the structure behind the project as it is about the property itself. Who owns what, how capital and returns flow between partners, and how everyone’s interests are protected if the project, or a partner, runs into trouble: these questions shape a deal as much as the site does. This is where we spend a significant amount of our time on development projects. We form the entities, build the ownership and capital structure (working alongside your tax advisor to get the details right), and draft the corporate documents and agreements that hold the whole arrangement together.
What we don’t do is the real estate side of the transaction itself. We’re not the team drafting or negotiating the real estate purchase agreement, and we don’t handle entitlement, zoning, easements, or similar land-use matters. Those questions call for real estate attorneys who focus on exactly that work day in and day out, and we’re glad to make an introduction to attorneys we trust. A helpful way to think about it: we build the legal structure the deal stands on, and we bring in a real estate specialist for the ground it’s built on.
3. Commercial Leases and General Corporate Work
Commercial lease review comes up often as part of our general corporate practice, and yes, we do this work. But leases vary widely in complexity and in what a client actually needs from a review, so we look at each request individually rather than taking every lease on by default. There are a limited number of situations where, after taking a look, we conclude we’re not the best fit. When that happens, we’ll tell you quickly and point you toward someone better suited to it.
Let’s Talk and See If We’re A Fit
Real estate deals rarely arrive in a clean, single-issue package, and you shouldn’t have to figure out on your own which bucket your project falls into before reaching out. If you’re selling a business that comes with a building attached, structuring a development deal that needs the right entities and agreements in place, or sitting on a lease you’d like reviewed before you sign it, we hope you reach out.
We’d love to learn about your project and see if we’re the right fit. Contact us today at info@doidacrow.com or call (720) 306-1001.
