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Bernstein Shur
Practices | Real Estate Law
Bernstein Shur’s Land Conservation attorneys have assisted individuals, families, organizations, and corporations with acquisitions that have resulted in the conservation of more than one and half million acres of land in Maine and New Hampshire over the past five years. These matters include:
- An initiative encompassing more than one-third of a million acres – and the largest contiguous conservation easement in U.S. history.
- Counsel on real estate and conservation issues to the owner of a majority of Maine’s hydro-electric projects
- Ongoing counsel to for-profit and non-profit entities structuring large-scale fee and easement acquisitions in New England’s Northern Forest.
The real estate attorneys work in an integrated fashion with the firm’s Environment and Natural Resources, Real Estate Law, Municipal, Estate Planning, and Tax groups to address complex land conservation matters. In addition, our clients benefit from the services of our subsidiary, Monument Title Company, which provides exemplary title research throughout the State of Maine and serves as an agent for national title insurance companies.
Additional capabilities include:
- Negotiation of complex option and purchase and sale agreements with landowners and public agencies
- Grant and loan agreements with public and private funders
- Due diligence for our clients and their funders, including title and environmental review
- Timberland acquisitions and sales
- Drafting and defending conservation easements (and their tax consequences)
- Project entity and tax treatment (entity choice, creation and tax structuring)
- Advising tax-exempt organizations, including land trusts, on entity structure and exemption issues
Bernstein Shur’s Land Conservation attorneys also advise individuals on title-holding mechanisms that will achieve complex family objectives, such as limited liability companies, limited partnerships, and trusts; and on ownership options that may reduce tax burdens. We provide counsel in the area of family ownership planning and transfers, including vehicles for multi-generational ownership. Our real estate attorneys are experts in the development of innovative conservation solutions, including donations and sales of conservation easement and fee interests to land conservation organizations and governmental agencies, and special use taxation.
From protection of rural farm fields for communities interested in maintaining historic character, to advising families on long-term conservation solutions to estate planning objectives, to negotiating landscape scale conservation easements, our experienced Land Conservation attorneys are committed to bring our clients’ visions to fruition.