About
Paul has acted for vendors, purchasers, developers, owners, and financiers of commercial and residential properties, offering his extensive knowledge in all aspects of the acquisition, sale, financing, development, and construction of real estate. His work on behalf of lenders has focused on the financing of commercial and development properties. His experience also encompasses significant real estate joint venture and partnership structuring and related business and finance structuring, real estate syndication, tax-based structuring of transactions, secured financing, business purchases and sales, re-organizations, investment structuring, ground leases and other leases, corporate matters, and contract enforcement.
Paul has been a featured speaker at professional development and continuing legal education seminars, and has been published in the Canadian Commercial Real Estate Manual (Thomson Carswell).
Real Estate Transactions
Paul has acted on behalf of clients from both the public and private sectors, in all areas of real estate, including:
- purchase and sale of residential, industrial and commercial properties, such as retail buildings, shopping centres, condominiums and multi-residential buildings, and high density development lands
- acquisition, development, and construction financing of residential, industrial and commercial properties on behalf of borrowers and private lenders
- land assemblies for developers including downtown Toronto surplus rail property
- arrangements with commercial neighbors including air rights, design constraints, density sharing, tie-back arrangements, construction easements, temporary access, and facility-sharing, including adjacent to rail corridors on behalf of rail companies
- multi-parcel umbrella loan facilities
- real estate syndications and private placements
Commercial and Contractual
As counsel to both private and public sector clients, Paul has broad experience in commercial and contractual matters, some of which include:
- purchase and sale of businesses, shares and assets
- ownership and corporate structuring and tax minimization
- negotiation of disputes
- partnership agreements
- co-owner and joint venture agreements
- shareholder agreements
- secured transactions and P.P.S.A. priorities issues and default enforcement
- loan agreements and financings
- private placements
- voting trust agreements
- service contracts
- equipment and property leases
- consulting contracts
- confidentiality agreements
- non-competition agreements
- employment agreements
- construction contracts
- distribution agreements
Planning and Development
Paul has significant experience in property development, including purchase and sale of vacant land, acquisition financing, negotiating with municipalities, drafting of development agreements, construction financing, construction contracts, and density sharing arrangements. His broad experience with these processes includes:
- easement agreements
- development agreements
- density sharing agreements
- subdivision agreements
- site servicing agreements
- cost sharing agreements
- shared facility agreements
- land exchanges
- Section 37 agreements
- access issues
- participation agreements
Construction Related Issues:
Paul is experienced in dealing with construction lien issues. This experience ranges from pro-active provisions in various agreements to protect against potential future construction lien exposure and to obtain security to such exposure, to responding to construction liens registered by others against the property of the particular client, to negotiating go-forward arrangements where a property has been made subject to numerous lien claims from large groups of lien claimants (whether as a result of financing issues or other issues), and negotiating comprehensive agreements to resolve all such claims in a workable structure, or alternatively obtaining court orders to enforce such structures on hold-out claimants. Paul also provides advice regarding trust fund issues and compliance with the Construction Lien Act from the point of view of owners as well as vendors.