Real Estate Insights

Analysis and practical guides on real estate.

42 articles, checklists, and guides on real estate law, written by the attorneys at MC Law. Every piece is general information, not legal advice — for a specific matter, contact the firm.

Real EstateNatural Resources

Oil, Gas, and Mineral Rights Toolkit: Title, Leasing, Royalties, and Disputes

This toolkit supplies the working documents of mineral ownership. It contains an ownership worksheet computing net mineral acres and identifying which of the five mineral sticks are held, a runsheet format, a lease addendum with the clauses worth the most money, a surface use agreement outline, a division order verification worksheet with the decimal calculation, a royalty audit demand, lease termination and release demands, curative documents including affidavits of heirship and ratifications, a forced pooling election analysis, a mineral deed review checklist for offers to purchase, and a family mineral entity structure for holding interests across generations.

Casey Scott McKayJuly 31, 202614 min read

Real EstateResidential Finance

Foreclosure Defense and Loan Workout Toolkit

This toolkit assembles the working documents of a residential mortgage default, on both sides of the file. It contains the RESPA request for information and notice of error templates that produce the loan file, an arrears and fee audit worksheet, the complete loss mitigation application package and the dual tracking assertion that stops a sale, model answer and affirmative defenses for judicial states, a foreclosure discovery request set, the temporary restraining order framework for nonjudicial states, and the exit documents — short sale approval terms, deed in lieu conditions, and the surplus funds claim. It also supplies the servicer-side compliance review that prevents most of the errors it identifies.

Casey Scott McKayMay 29, 202614 min read

Real EstateCommercial Ownership

Real Property Transactions Toolkit: Title, Survey, Easements, and Closing

A real property transaction is a diligence exercise with a closing attached, and every problem that surfaces at closing was disclosed weeks earlier in a document somebody filed without reading. This toolkit sequences the work: the agreement and the diligence period it buys, the title commitment converted into a task list and a risk list, the survey that reveals what a title search cannot, the zoning and environmental review, the lease and tenant analysis, the financing and the lender's requirements, the tax structure including a like-kind exchange, and the closing itself with the wire verification step that prevents the industry's most common uninsured loss. It closes with post-closing obligations and the ownership questions that arise afterward. It ends with the closing itself and the post-closing recording and policy review that confirm you bought what you thought you were buying.

Casey Scott McKayMay 1, 202614 min read

Real EstateCommon Interest Communities

Buying and Selling a Home in a Homeowners Association

Buying a home in a common interest community means buying a share of a small government along with the house, and the diligence that matters is documentary rather than physical. The association's financial condition, its reserve funding, its pending litigation, and any looming special assessment all transfer to the buyer, and none of them appears in a home inspection. Most states require the seller or the association to deliver a resale package within a defined period and give the buyer a right to cancel after reviewing it, which makes the contingency period the single point at which problems can still be avoided. This guide covers what to request and how to read it, the lender eligibility rules that can make a unit unfinanceable regardless of the buyer's credit, the closing mechanics including estoppel and transfer fees, and the seller's disclosure obligations.

Casey Scott McKayMarch 4, 202626 min read

Real EstateNatural Resources

Mineral Title and Oil and Gas Lease Review Checklist: A Practical Checklist

This checklist runs mineral title work and lease review in the order the transaction requires. It begins with establishing what is actually owned, including the severance history, the fractional interest expressed in net mineral acres, which of the five mineral sticks are held, and whether a dormant mineral statute applies. It then works the lease clause by clause with the negotiation position on each, the surface use agreement negotiated separately, the division order verification that determines every payment thereafter, and the post signing monitoring that catches a lease held past its term. A final section covers curative work on defective title.

Casey Scott McKayJanuary 23, 20268 min read

Real EstateCommercial Ownership

Easements, Boundary Disputes, and Adverse Possession

Land disputes between neighbors follow a small number of recurring patterns, and almost all of them are decided by doctrines that were fully formed before the Civil War. Someone uses a driveway across a neighbor's land for thirty years; a fence sits eight feet inside the recorded line; a landlocked parcel has no legal access; a garage overhangs the boundary by fourteen inches. This article works through the law that resolves each: the several ways an easement can arise and the very different proof each requires, how scope and relocation disputes are analyzed, the elements of adverse possession and the boundary doctrines that reach the same result more easily, and the remedies available for an encroachment. It closes with the diligence practices that prevent these disputes and the litigation choices that resolve them.

Casey Scott McKayOctober 30, 202526 min read

Real EstateCommon Interest Communities

Homeowners Associations and Condominium Law: Governance, Assessments, and Enforcement

A common interest community is a small private government with the power to tax, legislate, adjudicate, and foreclose, operated by volunteers who have usually received no training. The governing documents form a contract that runs with the land and binds every purchaser, but that contract sits beneath a growing overlay of state statutes, fair housing law, and judicial doctrines limiting what a board may enforce and how. The disputes that consume associations are predictable: unpaid assessments, architectural denials, underfunded reserves, selective enforcement, and the aftermath of developer control. This article covers the structure of the documents, the board's duties and the deference it receives, assessment and lien practice, enforcement mechanics, and the transition and construction defect issues that arise when the declarant leaves.

Casey Scott McKayOctober 25, 202526 min read

Real EstateResidential Finance

Mortgage Default and Loss Mitigation Checklist: A Practical Checklist

This checklist runs a mortgage default from the first missed payment to resolution, in the order the clock requires. It begins with the four facts that determine every later decision, then works the free administrative tools that produce the loan file and create a written record, the loss mitigation application that must be complete to trigger federal anti-dual-tracking protection, the fee and escrow audit that frequently reduces the arrears, and the defense review that identifies whether a real procedural defect exists. It includes separate tracks for judicial and nonjudicial states, a document inventory, and an exit checklist for homeowners who cannot keep the property.

Casey Scott McKaySeptember 11, 20259 min read

Real EstateNatural Resources

Negotiating an Oil and Gas Lease: A Practical Guide for Landowners

This guide is written for the landowner across the table from a landman. It explains what to establish before responding to any offer, how to value what you own, and then works through every clause worth negotiating in order of economic significance: the royalty fraction and the deduction language that can matter more than the fraction, the primary term, the Pugh and depth clauses that prevent a single well from holding everything forever, shut in and savings clauses, pooling limits, and warranty. It then covers the separate surface use agreement, what to do when the first check arrives, and how to verify the decimal interest that determines every payment thereafter.

Casey Scott McKayApril 9, 202529 min read

Real EstateTax

1031 Like-Kind Exchange Checklist: A Practical Checklist

A like-kind exchange is a deadline exercise with one absolute prerequisite: the qualified intermediary must be engaged and the assignment in place before the relinquished property closes, because once the taxpayer has the right to receive the proceeds no subsequent structure can fix it. This checklist runs the transaction chronologically from listing through the tax return, calls out the two statutory deadlines that cannot be extended, and flags the traps that end otherwise sound exchanges: a December closing without a return extension, a single identified property that falls out of contract, unreplaced debt producing boot in a completed exchange, and an intermediary who is a disqualified person because they are the taxpayer's own accountant. It closes with the reporting the exchange ultimately lives or dies on, and with the reverse and improvement structures worth considering when the replacement property has to come first. The identification rules get their own phase, since that is where most failed exchanges fail.

Casey Scott McKayMarch 24, 20258 min read

Real EstateCommercial Ownership

Title Insurance and Curing Title Defects: A Practical Guide

Title insurance is the only major insurance product that pays for losses arising from events that already happened, and understanding it means understanding that the premium buys two things: a search that finds problems before closing, and an indemnity for the problems the search missed. Most of the value is in the first. This guide covers how a title search and commitment are assembled and how to read the three schedules, what the standard exceptions actually exclude and how each is removed, the endorsements that matter in a commercial transaction, and the curative work that resolves the defects a search turns up — from a misspelled name to an open mortgage from 1974 to a break in the chain requiring a quiet title action. It closes with how claims are made and what the policy actually pays.

Casey Scott McKayMarch 21, 202526 min read

Real EstateCommercial Leasing

Commercial Lease Review Checklist: A Practical Checklist

A commercial lease is usually the second largest financial commitment a small business makes, and it is drafted by the landlord. This checklist covers the review in the order the money moves. It begins with the letter of intent, where the leverage actually exists, then rentable area and the load factor that determines what a stated rate really costs. It works through operating expense pass-throughs and the four provisions that control them, the tenant improvement allowance and delivery mechanics, and the use and exclusivity clauses that decide whether the space works for the business. Later phases cover the transfer provisions that matter if the company is ever sold, the personal guaranty and how to limit it, the lender documents that protect a tenant in a foreclosure, and the end-of-term obligations that produce most post-lease disputes.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 27, 20259 min read