Of Interest
Florida’s Portability Benefit: Taking Your Tax Savings With You
How the Save Our Homes cap follows you when you move... If you've owned a homesteaded property in Florida for more than a few years, you've probably benefited from the state's “Save Our Homes” cap without fully realizing it. Each year, while your home's market value may have climbed with the broader real estate market, your assessed value — the number your property taxes are actually based on — has been limited to increases of no more than 3% annually. Over a decade or two, that gap ...
WHAT IS “PORTABILITY” FOR ESTATE PLANNING PURPOSES AND HOW TO USE IT TO FULL ADVANTAGE
Portability lets a surviving spouse inherit what the first spouse never used — but only if the proper paperwork is filed; the couple must understand the protocols for this use. When a married person dies without using their full federal estate and gift tax exemption, that unused amount does not have to disappear. Under a rule known as portability, the leftover exemption — called the Deceased Spousal Unused Exclusion, or DSUE — can pass to the surviving spouse and be added to their own ...
When Silence Isn’t Golden: Implied “Commercially Reasonable”
Duties on Commercial Landlords in DC, Maryland, Virginia, and Florida Commercial leases are heavily negotiated documents, but even the most carefully drafted lease leaves gaps. Two of the most litigated gaps are what happens when a tenant defaults and abandons the space, and what happens when a tenant asks the landlord to consent to an assignment or sublease. In both situations, landlords often assume that silence in the lease means they have unfettered discretion. Courts in DC, Maryland, Vi...
SILENT DISCRETION, IMPLIED REASONABLENESS
_______________________________________________________________ How Maryland Law Constrains a Landlord's Unstated Discretion Under a Commercial Lease Weiss LLP • Client Advisory Commercial leases routinely hand the landlord a lever the tenant cannot pull back: approval of an assignment, sign-off on alterations, consent to a sublease, or the right to relocate a tenant within a building. Drafters do not always specify how that discretion must be exercised. When a dispute arises...
When Buying Property in Virginia, Insist on a General Warranty Deed with English Covenants of Title
Of all the paperwork in a real estate closing, the deed itself gets the least attention - everyone is focused on the loan documents, the settlement statement, the inspection report. But the deed is the one document that determines what protection you, the buyer, actually have if a title problem surfaces after closing. In Virginia, not all deeds are created equal, and the difference can matter enormously. Three Levels of Protection, Not Two Sellers and their counsel will sometimes offer a ...
CHANGING YOUR DOMICILE TO SAVE ON LOCAL TAXES
A guide to leaving a high-tax state — how have you handled “the move”? Every year, a predictable migration of people who move from the high-taking states of New York, Maryland, California, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, and Massachusetts and relocate into the nine states that currently impose no personal income tax: Florida, Alaska, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. The tax savings can be real and substantial. What is not auto...
IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, DON’T COUNT ON A LETTER OF INTENT NOT BEING BINDING!
Every deal begins somewhere short of a signed contract. A term sheet, a letter of intent, a memorandum of understanding — call it what you like — is the document parties exchange to memorialize where they have landed before lawyers draft the definitive agreement. The document almost always says, in one form or another, that it is “not binding” and “not enforceable.” Clients treat that sentence as a force field. It is not. Courts across the country, including in the District of Colum...
The “Caveat Lessee” Doctrine in Commercial Leasing
Weiss LLP | September 2, 2026 “Caveat lessee” — “let the lessee beware” — is the common-law rule that a commercial landlord makes no implied warranty that leased premises are fit, safe, or suitable for the tenant's intended use. Absent an express covenant, fraud, active concealment of a latent defect, or a governing statute, a commercial tenant takes the premises as found and bears the risk of their condition and suitability. The doctrine traces to agrarian leases, wh...
THE 30 SECOND QUIZ: SECTION 1031 “DEFERRED EXCHANGES” – IS IT RIGHT FOR ME?
ANSWER THESE 5 QUESTIONS AND YOU WILL HAVE GUIDANCE IN 30 SECONDS. 1. Do you intend to reinvest in another property knowing that you won’t have the balance of those funds after payment of income tax? 2. Is your expected gain large enough that deferring the tax is worth any added complexity and cost? 3. Will you be able to identify replacement property within 45 days of closing on your sale and if so, can you then close on that property within 180 days of your sale or by your ta...
The $30 Million Sweet Spot: Why 1031 Exchanges Pair So Well With Basis Step-Up
Real estate investors have used Section 1031 exchanges for decades to defer capital gains tax on the sale of investment property. What often gets less attention is what happens when that deferral runs into estate planning — and for married couples whose combined estate falls at or under the current federal estate tax exemption, the combination can eliminate the deferred tax altogether rather than merely postponing it. How the deferral works. Under Section 1031, an owner who sells rea...