Real Estate Due Diligence

Due diligence is the bedrock of real estate deals, regardless of the volume of transaction. This book presents a comprehensive guide to understanding and implementing due diligence and making an accurate assessment of the risks. While this process has become a “no-brainer” for investment professionals, the market standard on this essential topic has not yet been laid out in a comprehensive form that covers all the major aspects of real estate due diligence: legal, tax, financial and technical issues. This book fulfils that need, and gives it a form that can be used for German, European, or even international transactions. Written in a reader-friendly fashion, the easily navigable chapters are organized into the four due diligence dimensions, with ample examples and key takeaways. Be they real estate investors, or a management students specializing in the asset class, this book is a core resource for anyone wanting to get to grips with due diligence.

Prof. Dr. Tobias Just is Managing Director at the IRE|BS Immobilienakademie and professor for Real Estate at the University of Regensburg. Tobias studied economics in Hamburg and Uppsala (Sweden). In 1997 he graduated and started to work at the University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg. His PhD-dissertation was awarded the university science prize in 2001. For more than ten years Tobias worked at Deutsche Bank Research, the economics research unit of Deutsche Bank. He headed the units’ sector and real estate research team and was a member of Deutsche Bank’s group wide Environmental Steering Committee. In summer 2006 Tobias was Research Fellow at the American Institute of Contemporary German Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC. Tobias published more than 100 papers in professional and academic journals and books. Since November 2011 Tobias has been Managing Director at the IRE|BS Immobilienakademie and has a chair for Real Estate at the University of Regensburg. He is President of the German Society of Property Researchers (gif), editor of the ZIÖ – the German Journal of Real Estate Research and a member of the Executive Management Board of the German section of the Urban Land Institute. In 2013 Tobias was elected “Head of the German real estate industry” by leading real estate journalists, and in 2015 he was ranked among the leading German economists by the FAZ.

Dr. Hermann Stapenhorst, MRICS is a partner of 3A, a real estate focussed nationwide consulting law firm for real estate investment and strategy. He was admitted as an attorney-at-law in 1991 and started his professional career at Sigle Loose Schmidt Diemitz, where he became a partner in 1995. In 1997, he was appointed a Civil Law Notary. After the merger into CMS Hasche Sigle in 1999, he headed the firm´s Practice Group Real Estate and Construction for 10 years until 2009. Between 2009 and 2012, Hermann Stapenhorst had been the head of the CMS Hotel Industry BusinessGroup before he became a member of the CMS Hasche Sigle Board until 2014. He has been the president of the Pension Fund of Lawyers in Berlin since 2011. In 2015, he set up 3A.