Bricklemyer Smolker & Bolves, p.a.

“Property rights. Every American citizen values these rights and regards their protection as a basic premise upon which our constitutional democracy is founded.”

Practice Areas

The field of property rights representation encompasses a wide array of legal disciplines. Our lawyers have particular experience in the areas outlined below as practice areas, as well as in numerous, related areas. That experience includes frequently serving as seminar instructors and speakers for both legal and non-legal groups. Our clients in these practice areas generally include private property owners, developers, lenders, title insurance companies and local governments in both transactional situations and in litigation.

Eminent Domain

The largest and fastest growing area of the firm's practice is in eminent domain, including both condemnation and inverse condemnation or "takings" law. Our lawyers have represented hundreds of individual and business property owners whose property is being taken for public use. We assist our clients with pre-condemnation planning, selecting and coordinating the services of appraisal and other expert witnesses, negotiating with the condemning authority both before and after a condemnation suit is filed, and we litigate those cases where negotiations prove unsatisfactory. Our practice in this area of the law is enhanced by the collaboration among our eminent domain litigators and our lawyers having special appraisal, environmental and land use backgrounds. The experience of our attorneys, combined with our interdisciplinary method of approaching cases, results in a creative, synergistic environment for problem-solving.

Our attorneys have also achieved a statewide reputation for excellence in representing condemning authorities. We have extensive experience representing county and municipal governments as well as major public utilities. We have the skill, experience and manpower to manage large, multiple-parcel projects, and to develop and work within both budgets and critical path timelines for such projects.

Environmental and Land Use

Bricklemyer Smolker & Bolves, P.A. has a statewide practice representing property owners, business and local governments in environmental and land use law. Attorneys in this practice area are experienced in handling all matters which involve the use and development of property throughout Florida, including comprehensive planning and zoning; the determination of development entitlements and vested rights; the negotiation of developer agreements; challenges to impact fee assessments; and working with regulatory agencies at the local, regional, and state levels to obtain development approvals of all types including driveway access, environmental resource permits, dredge and fill permits, wetland and upland habitat mitigation agreements, stormwater management permits, and water use permits.

The firm has one of the state's leading practices in large-scale projects known as Developments of Regional Impact. These projects are typically long-term, mixed-use developments that involve multiple, complex environmental, land use, and political issues which require careful coordination of planning, permitting, and development activities. The diverse educational backgrounds and experience of the firm's lawyers make us uniquely qualified to serve the needs of our clients in this area.

In addition to the environmental regulations applicable to development, our attorneys meet the needs of our clients responding to complex environmental problems which may arise in the course of day-to-day business operations or transactions through their experience with, and up-to-date knowledge of, key areas of environmental law that affect the conduct of business, including the Superfund Laws, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Florida's Petroleum and Dry Cleaning Solvent regulations and remediation programs, and other environmental regulations at the local, state, and federal levels.

Real Estate

Bricklemyer Smolker & Bolves, P.A. represents clients in every aspect of their relationship to real property, from pre-acquisition due diligence through sale or condemnation. We provide not only purchase and sale, leasing and loan agreement documentation, but we also counsel our clients with respect to environmental, land use, zoning, impact fees, development entitlements, vesting and concurrency issues. Further, we provide advice regarding creative, alternative transaction and business entity structures as they relate to real estate matters. Our real estate clients range from homebuyers to national builders, developers, banks, insurance companies and real estate investment trusts.

As attorneys for the owners of many large-scale, multiple-use developments, we also provide counseling with respect to condominium and homeowners associations and special taxing districts, including Community Development Districts.

Ad Valorem Taxes

Bricklemyer Smolker & Bolves, P.A. has a highly respected, statewide ad valorem tax practice. We assist our taxpayer clients in evaluating their assessments and in challenging them where appropriate at both the property appraiser and Value Adjustment Board levels. In addition to real estate ad valorem challenges, this practice area also includes the field of tangible and intangible personal property tax actions. When administrative relief has proved unsatisfactory, we have litigated numerous major tax claims in state court.

Title Insurance

Purchasers of real property and lenders on those purchases typically require an insurance policy that insures the quality of title of the property in question. Bricklemyer Smolker & Bolves, P.A. serves as agent for a number of different title insurance underwriters. Our lawyers have extensive experience in dealing with title and survey objections and with special endorsements to govern unusual circumstances. We also have a substantial title insurance claims defense practice, representing numerous title insurance companies across the state in a wide variety of real estate related litigation.

Commercial Litigation

In addition to litigation related to the primary practice areas noted above, Bricklemyer Smolker & Bolves, P.A.'s lawyers represent business clients in litigation in state and federal courts regarding a diverse array of commercial disputes, such as breach of contract matters, partnership disputes, secured transactions and business torts.

Our strength in the commercial litigation area comes not only from the skill of our lawyers in the courtroom, but also from our individual and collective abilities to assist our clients in understanding alternative solutions to complex commercial litigation problems. We frequently recommend resolution of a controversy by mediation or other alternative dispute resolution methodologies. We fully understand and appreciate the need to control the cost of litigation, and we work diligently with our clients to establish and maintain budgets for attorney's fees and other litigation expenses.