Commercial Ground Leases is a definitive guide to drafting, negotiating, and finalizing equitable, error-free leasing documents that address the needs of both landlord and tenant. It covers the full range of relevant commercial ground leasing issues, including:

• Base rent, adjustments, taxes, and other payments
• Reappraisal of ground rents
• Objectives, assumptions, and mechanics of percentage rent
• Tenant and landlord financing
• Subordinated fee and leasehold mortgage financing
• Effects of bankruptcy, assumption of leases, rejection
• Tenant project development and lien issues
• Ground lease term, title, use and occupancy
• Subletting, assignment, sale, and continuing liability issues
• Exculpatory clauses and guaranties
• Insurance, damage, reconstruction, and condemnation
• Default and redemption
• Use of mediation, arbitration, and appraisal to resolve disputes
• Rights to purchase
• Termination, development rights leases, and multiparcel development

Commercial Ground Leases features adaptable, time-saving agreement language and contains numerous appendices, including forms of letter of intent, leasehold mortgagee protection clauses, intercreditor agreements, fee and leasehold deed of trust provisions, estoppel certificate and guaranty, and a complete ground lease with many alternative clauses.

Jerome D. Whalen is a graduate of the University of Washington and the Harvard Law School. He practices real estate and corporate law in Seattle, Washington and was a member of the board of directors of Wright Runstad & Company, a Seattle-based office building developer, from 1984 until 2004. His major ground lease projects have included the Four Seasons Olympic Hotel and the Wells Fargo Center in Seattle; One Bellevue Center, Two Bellevue Center, and Key Bank Center in Bellevue, Washington; and the Calais Office Center in Anchorage, Alaska. Mr. Whalen has taught and lectured extensively in both real estate and securities law, including courses at the University of Washington and University of Puget Sound (now Seattle University) Law Schools, and at programs sponsored by the Washington State Bar Association, Seattle-King County Bar Association, Northwest Center for Professional Education, and International Law Seminars. He is a member of the Washington State Bar Association, for which he has served as chairman of the Section on Corporation, Business and Banking Law, and the Washington State RICO Task Force. He can be reached at  jeromedwhalen@aol.com