Mergers and Acquisitions
Guiding Florida buyers and sellers through mergers and acquisitions, start to close.
Legal guidance for business purchases and sales, commercial agreements, property transactions, and leases—from reviewing the proposed terms to completing the agreed legal work.
Buying a business, negotiating a contract, or purchasing property involves decisions that can affect your obligations long after signing. The Elliot Legal Group, P.A. provides legal guidance on business and real estate transactions from its Fort Lauderdale office, with the scope of representation tailored to each engagement. A transaction is the part of a legal matter where the terms are still open. Once a purchase agreement is signed, a lease is executed, or a closing happens, most of what either side can do has already been decided by the document. The questions that matter are therefore front-loaded: who is actually buying, what is actually being bought, what happens if a condition is not met, and who carries the cost when something turns out to be different from what was represented. The firm works on both sides of that line. It drafts, reviews, and negotiates the agreements that govern business and real estate deals, and it handles the disputes that arise when those agreements break down. A client who engages the firm on a transaction is working with a firm that has seen how the same clauses are argued about afterward. Work is handled from one office at 115 NE 3rd Avenue, Suite 707, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The firm's primary market is Fort Lauderdale and Broward County, and it represents clients in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties as well.
Business owners buying or selling a company. Often a first or only transaction of this kind, where the buyer or seller needs to understand what the letter of intent commits them to, what the purchase agreement is actually transferring, and what obligations survive the closing.
Companies that sign agreements regularly. Vendor contracts, customer agreements, service agreements, and supplier terms, where the volume is routine but the exposure is not.
Partners and co-owners setting terms between themselves. Operating agreements, shareholder agreements, and bylaws that set out management, ownership, contribution, distribution, and exit — including consensual changes to ownership when someone joins or leaves.
Buyers, sellers, and owners of commercial property. Office, retail, industrial, and investment property, where the diligence period and the contract terms determine what a buyer can still walk away from.
Residential buyers and sellers. Individuals and families buying or selling a home who want the contract, the disclosures, and the closing documents looked at by a lawyer representing them.
Landlords and business tenants negotiating commercial leases. A commercial lease is a long-term financial commitment written by someone else’s lawyer. The firm will assess commercial lease matters for landlords and for business tenants, case by case, subject to conflicts and an agreed engagement. The firm does not handle residential tenant defense.
Out-of-state and international clients buying into Florida businesses or Florida property are a regular part of this work.
The useful moment is almost always earlier than people expect.
If a transaction has a signing or closing deadline, say so in the first conversation. Deadlines affect whether and how quickly the firm can take a matter on.
Have this ready to describe. Please do not send contracts, financial records, or other confidential material until an engagement agreement is signed — the firm will tell you how to transmit documents once it can receive them.
Gavin Elliot, Esq. is the Founder and Senior Managing Partner of The Elliot Legal Group, P.A. and the attorney responsible for the firm’s transactional matters. All legal judgment on a transaction — whether the firm accepts the matter, how an agreement should be structured, what a term means for you, and what position to take in a negotiation — rests with him.
Earlier stages of contact with the firm, including the Initial Case Assessment & Firm-Fit Call, are handled by non-attorney staff under his supervision and do not involve legal advice.
Each service below has its own page with process, questions, and the counties it covers.
Gavin T. Elliot, Esq. is the Founder and Senior Managing Partner of The Elliot Legal Group, P.A. in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His practice focuses on business litigation, real estate disputes, partnership and shareholder conflicts, corporate governance matters, and related civil disputes.
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A transactional attorney works on agreements rather than lawsuits. The work is drafting, reviewing, and negotiating the documents that govern a deal — a purchase agreement, a commercial lease, an operating agreement, a vendor contract — and advising a client on what those documents commit them to before they are signed. It is distinct from litigation, which addresses a dispute after it has arisen. The Elliot Legal Group handles both, which means a transactional client is not handed off to another firm if the deal later turns into a dispute.
Reviewing an agreement before signing is a significant part of this practice. It is work the firm performs under a signed engagement agreement, not something provided during the first call — the Initial Case Assessment & Firm-Fit Call identifies the matter and whether the firm can take it, and does not include document review or legal advice. If you have a signing deadline, say so when you first make contact, because whether the firm can take the matter in time depends on it.
Yes, on both business and real estate transactions, and on either side of a lease. The firm represents one side in any given transaction; which side it can act for in a particular matter depends on conflicts, so it is worth asking early. Buyer-side and seller-side work are not the same job: a buyer is usually concerned with diligence, conditions, and what survives closing, while a seller is usually concerned with limiting what they are still responsible for afterward.
A plain description of the transaction, which side you are on, the names of the other parties so a conflict check can be run, any deadlines that already exist, and whether anything has been signed. You do not need to prepare documents for that call, and you should not send confidential material until an engagement agreement is signed.
That is a different kind of matter and it is assessed differently. If a deal has already broken down — a deposit is being withheld, a closing failed, a party is not performing, or a lease is in default — the relevant practice is litigation rather than transactional work, and the early steps are preserving documents and communications and reviewing any notice, venue, or arbitration terms in the agreement. The firm handles disputes of this kind. Tell the intake team that a dispute already exists, because it changes how the matter is assessed and which deadlines apply.
Whether you have a legal question, need to schedule a consultation, or want to learn more about how we can help, we respond quickly and clearly.
Nothing on this form creates an attorney-client relationship. Do not send confidential information until an engagement is signed.
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