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 EstateLandlord Tenant

Residential Landlord-Tenant Law: Leases, Habitability, Deposits, and Eviction

Housing is the area of law where the most people have the most at stake and the least information. A residential lease is a contract, but it is a contract overlaid with statutes, an implied warranty that cannot be waived in most states, and an eviction process built for speed rather than deliberation. This article explains what a lease actually promises, where the implied warranty of habitability came from and what it requires, the four remedies a tenant has for a landlord who will not repair, how security deposits are regulated, why self-help lockouts are illegal nearly everywhere, how summary eviction works and what defenses actually win, and what happens after a judgment. It is written for tenants, for landlords, and for the lawyers and judges who see these cases in volume.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 12, 202429 min read

Real EstateResidential Ownership

Buying a Home: Contract, Inspection, Title, Financing, and Closing

A home purchase is the largest transaction most people ever enter, conducted on a form contract, on a compressed timeline, with the parties represented in some states by lawyers and in others by no one. This guide walks the transaction in order. It covers the offer and the purchase agreement, including the contingencies that are the buyer's only real protection and the deadlines that silently waive them. It then addresses seller disclosure and the limits of an as-is sale, the inspection and what to do with what it finds, title review and what an owner's policy does and does not cover, and the survey that turns title exceptions into a picture. Later sections cover financing and the federal disclosure timeline, homeowners association documents, the closing itself with a line-by-line review of the settlement statement, and the post-closing steps people forget.

Casey Scott McKayDecember 26, 202325 min read

Real EstateConstruction

Construction Project Toolkit: A Roadmap for Owners

An owner building a project is buying a promise about the future from parties whose interests diverge the moment anything goes wrong, and the owner's leverage is entirely front-loaded. Almost every construction dispute traces to a decision made before the first shovel: the delivery method, the completeness of the design when the price was set, the schedule provisions nobody enforced, and the lien waiver process that was never run. This toolkit follows the project in order: selecting a delivery method and understanding what each does to risk, engaging the design professional, structuring the price, the contract provisions that decide claims, insurance and bonds, running payment and change control, closing out, and resolving disputes. It is written for owners who build occasionally rather than continuously.

Casey Scott McKayDecember 5, 202314 min read

Real EstateCommercial Ownership

Real Estate Development Toolkit

Development is a sequence of options in which the developer buys time to answer questions before committing capital, and the failures are almost always a question answered too late. Title exceptions discovered after closing, an environmental condition found after the innocent landowner defense was lost, an entitlement the site could not obtain, a construction loan that funded before the equity was documented. This toolkit follows a project from site identification through disposition: structuring the acquisition with the diligence period and the deposit at risk, running title and survey and environmental review, obtaining entitlements, assembling the capital stack and the joint venture, financing and building, achieving stabilization, and exiting. Each stage identifies the decision that must be made before the next one begins.

Casey Scott McKayNovember 14, 202313 min read

Real EstateProperty Tax

Contesting a Property Tax Assessment: A Practical Guide

Property tax is the largest recurring cost of owning real estate, it is assessed by a local official using mass appraisal methods, and it is wrong often enough that a review is worth doing every year. The appeal process is administrative first and judicial second, the deadlines are short and jurisdictional, and the standard of review favors the assessor through a presumption of correctness that the owner must overcome with evidence rather than argument. Two distinct grounds exist and they require different proof: that the assessment exceeds market value, and that it exceeds what comparable properties bear, which is a uniformity claim available in most states. This guide covers how assessments are produced, how to evaluate whether one is wrong, the evidence that actually persuades, the procedural sequence, and the exemptions and classifications that are frequently more valuable than a valuation appeal.

Casey Scott McKayOctober 22, 202327 min read

Real EstateEnvironmental

Environmental Liability for Businesses and Property Owners: CERCLA, RCRA, and Diligence

Environmental liability is strict, joint and several, and retroactive, which means a business can be responsible for contamination it did not cause, did not know about, and that was lawful when it occurred. This article explains the regimes that produce that result and the defenses that limit it. It covers CERCLA in detail, including the four categories of potentially responsible parties, the arranger and operator theories that reach beyond the current owner, and the landowner defenses that depend entirely on having conducted all appropriate inquiries before acquisition. It then covers RCRA's generator obligations and corrective action authority, its citizen suit provision, and the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act obligations that most often surprise ordinary operating businesses. Later sections address transactional diligence and allocation, brownfields and state voluntary cleanup programs, environmental insurance, successor liability, and emerging contaminants including PFAS.

Casey Scott McKayJuly 14, 202325 min read