Real Estate Litigation

Benesch’s Real Estate Litigation team handles complex disputes involving the ownership, use and value of real property. We counsel lenders, developers, owners, operators and investors in high-stakes matters that influence how projects move forward, how portfolios are protected and how assets are valued and preserved. Our work spans condemnations, zoning and land use challenges, commercial lease disputes, restrictive covenants, environmental issues, title and easement questions, and litigation tied to distressed assets and financing.

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Overview

Comprehensive Dispute Resolution Across the Real Estate Lifecycle

Real estate conflicts often arise at pivotal moments, including during development, redevelopment, financing, refinancing or distress. Our team anticipates these inflection points and helps clients navigate them with a mix of courtroom experience, industry knowledge and business practicality.

We represent clients in matters involving governmental condemnations, regulatory takings, large-tract zoning issues, inverse condemnation, environmental liability and cleanup, building code enforcement, tax disputes and condominium regulation. We also handle all forms of title, ownership and use rights, easements, restrictive covenants, leasehold issues and administrative hearings.

A significant portion of our work involves distressed real estate and credit litigation. We regularly advise senior secured lenders, special servicers and trustees on multimillion-dollar disputes involving mixed-use properties, affordable housing, historic sites and large real estate portfolios.

Our experience includes receivership appointments, foreclosure proceedings, guarantor litigation, refinancing negotiations and sale processes that resolve defaulted or contested loans. We understand the operational and financial pressures facing lenders and borrowers and work to protect collateral value while moving matters toward resolution.

Our team also handles disputes arising within real estate investment structures, joint ventures and complex ownership arrangements. We provide strategic counsel on valuation disagreements, management issues and fiduciary obligations tied to significant real estate holdings.

Examples include serving as lead counsel to the trustee of a large family office in confidential mediation involving management and valuation disputes for a multibillion-dollar real estate portfolio, and representing clients in breach of contract claims against developers, including a $15 million arbitration.

We also help resolve conflicts between competing developers, securing outcomes that allow projects to move ahead and protect long-term asset value.

Commercial leasing disputes remain a central part of our practice, and our track record spans some of the most notable continuous use and occupancy cases in Ohio. Our work includes enforcing lease obligations, interpreting restrictive covenants and defending claims involving operating requirements in retail centers and mixed-use developments.

Our attorneys have prevailed in numerous published decisions addressing continuous operation clauses, indemnity issues and commercial lease enforcement.

We advise clients on disputes tied to zoning, property development and land use rights, including challenges to governmental actions, site-planning conflicts and easement and encroachment issues. These matters often require close coordination with planning authorities, appraisers, environmental consultants and engineers, and we guide clients through the regulatory and litigation landscape to protect project timelines.

Our work includes negotiating and drafting new easement terms after encroachment issues were identified during site preparation for a new hotel development.

Related Practices

Litigation

Our work in action

Representative Examples

Represented a lender in litigation and foreclosure

of a historic Philadelphia property tied to more than $100 million in loans and navigating preservation and valuation considerations during the process.

Litigated and refinanced

approximately $55 million in loans secured by multiple Delaware assets in state and federal courts.

Guided a senior secured lender through receivership and litigation

involving approximately $30 million in loans secured by affordable housing assets in Pittsburgh, which required close coordination with local courts and property managers.

Secured the sale of collateral 

and full loan satisfaction for a lender in litigation in Pennsylvania and New York.

Represented a special servicer in litigation and refinancing

of an approximately $25 million loan secured by a Philadelphia and Delaware County portfolio.

Achieved a successful collateral sale

and loan satisfaction in a Lehigh County dispute involving a mixed-use property and a $5 million credit facility.