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 lives 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 Profes-sional Education, and International Law Seminars. He has served as chairman of the Section on Corporation, Business and Banking Law of  the Washington State Bar Association, and the Washington State RICO  Task Force. Mr. Whalen is currently acting as a consultant (and  sometime arbitrator) in ground lease and other real estate matters.