CRE Opinion Letter Basics for Non-Attorneys

A high-level understanding of opinion letters is a useful tool for anyone working in commercial real estate (CRE)—including businesspeople and next generation attorneys. Guest hosts Daniel Evans and Jay Wardlaw, co-chairs of Seyfarth’s Real Estate Finance practice, are joined by Cameron Weil, counsel in Seyfarth’s Real Estate department, to discuss the foundational basics of delivering opinion letters to lenders in CRE transactions, including: • What are opinion letters? • Who provides the opinion letters for a given transaction and to whom are they addressed? • What are the main types of opinion letters typically delivered in connection with an ordinary CRE finance transaction? Notably, Cameron, who serves as chair of the Finance and Development subcommittee on the NYC Bar Association’s Real Property Law Committee, was recently part of a group that published a model legal opinion which can be used by CRE attorneys in New York.