LaRee DeFreece, LLC
Corporate Real Estate Legal Services
Case Study
LaRee DeFreece was hired by Corporation following its voluminous acquisition of cable systems in 1999 and 2000. Things were moving fast during those early days - the focus was on operating the newly acquired cable systems and servicing the new customers.
Real estate issues came to the attention of the legal department in 2002 when Corporation received notices of tax sales of various tower sites and headend sites that were providing critical support to the operating cable systems. The Vice President of Legal Operations hired Ms. DeFreece in 2002 to oversee and manage the review, organization and clean-up of the real estate assets. The portfolio at that time included over 1,000 owned sites, almost 3,000 leased sites and over 4,500 easements in over 40 states.
Over the next three years, we discovered ownership of an additional 287 owned sites and oral or month-to-month leases on over 1,500 sites. More than 200 owned sites were encumbered by unreleased mortgages dating back to the 1970’s, usually involving long gone entities, deceased individuals and banks that had been merged out of existence years ago. In over 400 cases, deeds had not been recorded at the time of transfer of the cable systems, so tax notices were not coming to the proper addresses.
Led by Ms. DeFreece, the team quickly reviewed and prioritized owned assets . The team utilized title companies and surveyors in all of the states of operation, hired local counsel in instances in which quiet title actions were necessary, and became friends with many good folks in various county assessors’ offices. Due to the extreme volume of leases needing review, Corporation hired Equis to quickly abstract thousands of leases.
Today, Corporation ’s day-to-day real estate management functions are handled within the organization by a dedicated and talented team of real estate management professionals using web-based real estate management software.
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Woodridge Rd, St. Louis, MO 63122314-680-6801lmd@LaReeDeFreece.comsite design by CompuSmile