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Coronavirus Q&A: Blank Rome Real Estate Leader

Law360
Pelayo Coll Headshot

In this edition of Coronavirus Q&A, one of Blank Rome LLP's real estate leaders chatted with Law360 about how landlords and tenants are handling rent discussions, the way force majeure may play out and how the COVID-19 pandemic compares to the Great Recession.

Pelayo Coll, a Philadelphia-based partner and co-chair of Blank Rome's real estate practice group, shared his thoughts as part of a series of interviews Law360 is conducting with lawyers on the ways in which the pandemic has impacted businesses and created a new set of legal challenges and considerations.

[...]

How would you describe the way your work has changed over the last couple of months?

Obviously, the working-from-home aspect brings its own challenges. We're a transactional practice, and while transactions are still going on, just logistically and administratively everything's more difficult with everybody in a remote location. Our workflow and workload have also obviously been impacted by COVID-19 in that we're not seeing the volume of transactions, the startings, that we would typically see.

Credit markets are frozen and/or are uncertain. We have all kinds of practical stumbling blocks to getting things like due diligence done. You can't go and walk into units at a multifamily property. Some tenants aren't allowing people into their space. The practical things that drive a transaction on the ground are all very difficult with stay-at-home orders. What we're doing is trying to help our clients think of creative and new and different ways to get around these stumbling blocks.

To real the full interview, please click here

"Coronavirus Q&A: Blank Rome Real Estate Leader," by Andrew McIntyre was published in Law360 on April 29, 2020.