Real Estate Law

The practice

Most people work with a real estate attorney for one of two reasons: a transaction or a dispute. The firm handles both. The transactional side is about catching issues on the front end. Bad title, undisclosed easements, and contract terms that do not match what was negotiated. The dispute side is for when that did not happen.

Lameese Nazzal leads the real estate practice. Mustapha Daher handles the litigation side when a deal breaks down and ends up in court.

What we handle

• Residential transactions. Buyer-side and seller-side work on purchases, sales, and refinances.
• Commercial real estate. Acquisitions, dispositions, ground leases, and build-to-suit projects.
• Closings. Document review, signing, and recording. The mechanics done correctly.
• Title review and title insurance. Catching defects, liens, and unrecorded interests before they become your problem.
• Property disputes. Boundary lines, easements, adverse possession, and neighbor disputes that escalated.
• Landlord-tenant. Lease drafting, evictions, security deposit disputes, and commercial lease enforcement.
• Purchase agreements and land contracts. Drafting and negotiating terms that protect you rather than the other side.
• Zoning and land use. Variances, conditional use approvals, and planning board appearances.
• Development projects. Site acquisition, permitting, construction oversight, and the work that takes a parcel from raw land to finished asset.
• Joint ventures. Structuring co-ownership arrangements for property development, ownership, or management, including the operating documents that govern who gets what.
• Real estate financing. Representing both lenders and borrowers on acquisition loans, construction loans, and refinancings. Loan documents, security agreements, and the negotiations around them.
• Property management. Counsel for property managers and ownership groups on management agreements, tenant disputes, and ongoing operational issues.
• Investor representation. End-to-end work for real estate investors, including entity formation, financing, site acquisition, permitting, zoning, construction management, and transfer agreements.

What an attorney actually does on a deal

Most of the value happens before closing, not at it. The items reviewed include:

• Title defects, liens, and encumbrances that the title commitment buried in the exceptions
• Contract terms the other side drafted that quietly favor them
• Compliance with Michigan disclosure and recording rules
• Disputes that surface between offer and closing, before they kill the deal
• Translating the closing package into language a non-attorney can read

Who we represent

The real estate practice works with a range of clients, including:

• Residential buyers and sellers
• Commercial property owners, buyers, and sellers
• Real estate investors and developers
• Property management companies
• Investment groups and partnerships
• Lenders and borrowers on real estate financing

Where we work

Most of the real estate practice is in Wayne County: Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Detroit, Livonia, and the surrounding municipalities. The local building departments, registers of deeds, and zoning boards each have their own procedures. Knowing them saves time.