Ted has many years of experience as both a transactional real estate lawyer and a property tax consultant. As a property tax practitioner, Ted’s extensive experience and close relationship with Assessors throughout California allows him to achieve acceptable assessments for his clients’ real property holdings. Ted’s transactional real estate practice specializes in real property and documentary transfer tax matters, purchase and sale transactions, commercial leasing and a myriad of property ownership issues.
Ted has successfully worked with Assessors to properly value a portfolio of assets, including collaborating with regional practitioners in dealing with large portfolios dispersed throughout multiple taxing jurisdictions. He has extensive experience in proactively negotiating, and resolving issues associated with, the valuation of new construction. Ted also counsels clients facing significant documentary transfer taxes, and his familiarity with the myriad of local ordinances has enabled clients to not only minimize the resulting tax but also to avoid associated penalties and interest which many cities and counties impose for non-compliance.
Prior to joining Starr Finley, Ted was co-founder and principal of Ad Valorem Solutions, LLC (AVS), a San Francisco-based tax consulting practice that represented many of the nation’s largest owners, managers and developers of commercial property. As a respected professional, Ted has been a featured author in a variety of publications, has been a panelist on numerous property tax-related presentations and has written extensively about Proposition 13 and the many subsequent legislative and judicial efforts to address the effects of that voter-approved initiative. Ted also was a founding board member and past President of the California Alliance of Taxpayer Advocates, the tax consultants’ state-wide trade organization.
As a self-proclaimed “geezer dad,” Ted’s daughter is partly responsible for his young spirit. At the moment, Ted is vicariously following his daughter’s adventures in Central America and learning about the merits of the gap year.
Bar Admissions:
- California State Bar Association
Professional Affiliations:
- California Alliance of Taxpayer Advocates
Education:
- Golden Gate University, J.D.
- Lehigh University, B.S., Business and Economics
