Real Estate

The Manning Kass Real Estate Team represents the full spectrum of real estate professionals—including appraisers, brokers, loan brokers, contractors,  developers, escrow companies, home inspectors, and title companies—in litigation and transactions. Our Real Estate Team is led by Fredric "Fred" W. Trester, who has served as co-chair of the State Bar Committee on Real Estate Brokerage and Sales Transactions, was nominated as Real Property Attorney of the Year in 2012, and is a member of the California Association of REALTORS® (CAR) Legal Affairs Forum and the CAR Strategic Defense Counsel Panel. Mr. Trester has qualified as an expert in real estate broker standard of care issues, and has tried numerous cases to verdict or judgment with a greater than 90 percent success rate.

Our team uses a pragmatic, cost-effective approach to defend our clients against a myriad of real estate claims involving:
    • actions to enforce guaranties and pledge agreements;
    • administrative proceedings brought by
        - the California Bureau of Real Estate
        - and Office of Real Estate Appraisers;
    • commercial leasing;
    • boundary and easement disputes;
    • breach of development and construction agreements;
    • errors & omissions, including negligence and breach of fiduciary duty;
    • fraudulent conveyance;
    • lender liability;
    • non-disclosure and misrepresentation of defects; and
    • real estate workouts, among more.

We are active in the real estate brokerage community; several of our attorneys also possess broker licenses. This dual expertise yields deep insight with which to counsel clients. Through the actualities of real estate practice, we have obtained crucial advantages. We comprehend, first-hand, the pragmatic issues our clients face.

In addition to our solid litigation experience, our attorneys possess extensive knowledge of real estate transactions. We have represented or supervised countless buyers and sellers in residential and commercial property acquisitions. Additionally, we handle commercial lease transactions for landlords and tenants.

Our Real Estate Team assists in the development of legislative proposals that impact real estate professionals and provides commentary and input regarding some of the forms commonly used in most California real estate transactions. We regularly collaborate to develop risk management and loss prevention strategies for real estate professionals.

Our approach to risk management is proactive. We regularly provide seminars and publish articles to alert clients to red flags they must learn to recognize early in order to avoid litigation, as well as offering personal risk management counseling.