Cell Tower Lease Buyouts

People with a cell tower on their property or cell antenna on their building routinely receive offers to buy the cell lease and leasing rights, often for sums in the six figures. Such offers, often structured as perpetual easements, pose unusual legal, financial, and technical risks that the property owner and its regular attorneys may not be aware of. This live webinar will help property owners and their attorneys to evaluate and respond to buyout offers. This includes learning their financial basics, what drives them, typical prices, how to evaluate them and common situations where a buyout makes sense (and some that don't). After this webinar property owners will be better able to evaluate buyout offers, whether a buyout makes business sense (can the property owner can do better on its own?), correct the very one-sided documents offered by buyout companies and address some of the risks involved in buyouts. Risks include making sure the property owner is not hindered in developing or using its property, ensuring that future sums promised by the buyout company in fact are paid and the contract honored (and buyout company evicted if they are not), insurance and bankruptcy protections and questions as to the financial solvency of the buyout company. These risks are exacerbated by the long term (50 years to perpetuity) of the proposed buyout and the fact the property owner usually still owns the property in question (due to the buyout being structured as a permanent easement).

Units of government face all of the preceding issues, plus fundamental questions of municipal authority, compliance with municipal finance/procurement statutes, prohibitions on waste, and risks of property reverters.

Learning Objectives:

• You will be able to recognize buyout terms preventing future use, development of land/building by property owner.
• You will be able to define Dillon's Rule or property specific restrictions.
• You will be able to discuss revising documents to protect property owner, address preceding issues.
• You will be able to describe when a buyout does and does not make sense for you.

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