A Lender in a real estate financing transaction often requires borrower’s counsel to opine on certain aspects of the transaction as a condition to the closing. Often, the negotiations between borrower and lender counsel are as contentious and extended as are negotiations regarding the loan documents themselves. The respective attorney opinion committees of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, the American College of Mortgage Attorneys, and the Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section of the American Bar Association have worked for years to produce opinion reports that are fairly balanced between the needs of lenders and borrowers and that can reduce the negotiations over real estate finance opinions. The first opinion report specifically addressing financing opinions in real estate transactions was the Real Estate Opinion Letter Guidelines published in 38 Real Prop. Prob. & Tr. J. 241 (2003). The next report was the comprehensive The Real Estate Finance Opinion Report of 2012 published at 47 Real Prop. Tr. & Est. L. J. 213 (2012) and The ACREL Papers 121 (Spring 2013). The Local Counsel Opinion Letters – A Supplement to the Real Estate Finance Opinion Report of 2012, 51 Real Prop. Tr. & Est. L. J. 167 (2016) directly addresses the particular issues facing local counsel in real estate finance transactions. The latest report, just published at 53 Real Prop. Tr. & Est. L. J. 163 (Fall 2018/Winter 2019), is Uniform Commercial Code Opinions in Real Estate Finance Transactions (the “UCC Opinion Report”). In addition to accessing these reports in the Real Property Probate and Trust Journal, the Legal Opinion Resource Center of the ABA Business Law Section contains these and many other opinion reports and resources.
