Recent News

The City of Burien established a Rental Housing Inspection Program in September 2019 which applies to apartments, duplexes, triplexes and four-plexes. Currently, single-family homes, condos, townhomes, short-term rentals, and others are exempt from the licensing and inspection requirements in the City of Burien. In the City of Burien, the rental license is managed by the… Read More

Eminent domain, generally speaking, is the power of the government to take private property without the private owner’s consent.  Under the U.S. Constitution, the government exercising this power must compensate the property owner for the fair market value of the property taken.  The U.S. Supreme Court has held that it is not a violation of… Read More

Real estate investors regularly purchase investment property in their name and transfer the property to a wholly owned LLC after closing the purchase. In this case, on purchase, the “insured” is a person for title insurance. What happens to title insurance once the investor transfers the property to their LLC? This question was addressed in… Read More

In last week’s blog, I discussed restrictions on the transfer of shares in a shareholder agreement. This week, taking it a step further, I will discuss certain transfer restrictions discussed in a recent Washington Court of Appeals Case: Hammond v. Everett Clinic, PLLC, No. 80772-2-I, 2021 WL 961130 (Wn. App. Mar. 15, 2021). Case Dispute… Read More

March 18th, 2021 David C. Tingstad discusses business succession planning with Grund Painting Tatley-Grund President Stacey Grund. Read More

Corporations are creatures of statute, contrary to LLCs, which are creatures of a contract.  I have written extensively about the need for a carefully crafted LLC agreement, but have not written much about the need for shareholders in a closely held corporation to have a carefully crafted shareholder agreement. Shares of stock are generally freely… Read More

Although perhaps unfamiliar with the dynamics of real property law, many in the general public often have an ingrained concept of adverse possession, a notion that the property that they have used for so long should belong to them no matter what a survey might show (discussed in a previous blog post here). Along with this… Read More

Inevitably, every business will end. Successful businesses plan for the end, and, as a result, maximize the value of their efforts. A proper advance plan can help maximize value when the time comes. Just as every business is different, a plan for succession varies for every business. There are a few fundamentals for an ‘advance… Read More

In prior postings, I have discussed how membership has its privileges, but how does a person know if they are in fact a member?   Washington’s LLC Act provides two different standards for membership depending on the time period a member is admitted.  For the admission of “the initial member” a person becomes a member upon… Read More