Margate Real Estate Litigation Attorney

Most people who end up in a property fight want one of a few concrete things: clear title, a sale that actually closes, a co-owner out of the picture, or a tenant out of the unit. The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team is a business and real estate litigation firm that works toward those outcomes for property owners, investors, landlords, and families, and if you need a Margate real estate litigation attorney, we represent clients in Broward County, Palm Beach County, and throughout South Florida.

Margate sits in the middle of Broward County’s residential and small-commercial corridor, and the disputes that come from it tend to follow the property itself: condominiums and townhomes that were inherited by several siblings, rental units held with a former partner, duplexes bought by out-of-state investors, and commercial parcels where a sale contract fell apart before closing. Each of these has its own deadlines, its own court, and its own way of going wrong if the early steps are mishandled.

What follows is a practical look at the kinds of real estate disputes that reach litigation, the time limits that control them, and how the process unfolds in the Broward County courts that hear them.

Why Clients Choose the Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team for Property Disputes

The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team represents business owners, investors, and families in some of South Florida’s hardest business and real estate disputes, serving clients in Margate, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, and across Broward and Palm Beach Counties. Andrew M. Schwartz, the firm’s founder, was admitted to The Florida Bar in 1989 and has spent 37 years in litigation, with a career built around contract disputes, business divorces, and conflicts between co-owners. He earned his undergraduate degree from Emory University in 1986 and his law degree from the University of Miami in 1989. Sundeep Nath, Senior Counsel, is a Northwestern-trained litigator with years of experience handling business and real estate cases in both state and federal courts.

Real estate litigation is, at its core, contract litigation, and these cases are decided on the exact wording of a purchase agreement and the history between the parties. That is where this firm’s depth shows. After a five-day bench trial in Broward County Circuit Court, the court issued a 32-page final judgment awarding our client specific performance of a commercial real estate contract, meaning the court ordered the deal to be completed rather than leaving the client with a damages claim. For anyone whose goal is the property itself and not a check, that kind of result matters.

The firm practices as a true legal team, so everyone working on your matter knows the file and can respond when you call. We keep a strict 24 hour return call policy when we are in court or otherwise tied up, and we handle local court appearances for clients who live elsewhere. Our attorneys are experienced in mediation and arbitration as well as the courtroom, and we aim for the resolution that fits your goals and your budget rather than stretching a case out for its own sake.

Types of Real Estate Disputes We Litigate for Margate Owners and Investors

• Failed Closings and Purchase Contract Disputes: When a buyer or seller walks away from a signed contract, the remedies include damages and, in the right case, a court order compelling the sale. Commercial deals in Broward County often turn on financing contingencies, inspection periods, and deposit provisions that need close reading.
• Partition Actions Among Co-Owners: Siblings who inherited a home, former business partners, and unmarried couples can ask the court to divide the property or order it sold and the proceeds split. These cases are brought in the chancery side of the court under Chapter 64.
• Quiet Title and Title Disputes: Competing ownership claims, clouded deeds, and recorded instruments that should not be there can be cleared through a quiet title action, which asks the court to determine who actually owns the land.
• Heirs Property Cases: Property held by relatives as tenants in common after an owner’s death receives special treatment under Florida’s partition statute, which changes how courts decide between dividing the land and selling it.
• Landlord and Tenant Disputes: Nonpayment, lease violations, and holdovers in residential and commercial rentals, including the notice requirements that must be followed correctly before any eviction filing can succeed.
• Disputes Between Co-Investors: Rental properties and development parcels held through an LLC or partnership can produce deadlock, diverted rents, and disagreements over capital contributions, which overlap with business divorce claims.
• Emergency Injunctions to Protect Property: When a co-owner is about to sell, encumber, or strip a property, temporary and permanent injunctive relief can freeze the situation while the case is decided.
• Adverse Possession and Boundary Claims: Someone claiming a parcel or a strip of land through years of open occupation, or an owner trying to defeat such a claim, faces strict statutory requirements.

What to Do When a Real Estate Dispute Starts

The first step is to stop and collect the paper before anyone takes a position in writing. Gather the deed, the purchase contract and every amendment, the closing statement, any lease, the operating or partnership agreement if the property is held through an entity, and every email or text exchanged with the other side. Real estate cases are won and lost on documents, and the version you have in hand today may be the only complete one.

Then pay attention to the clock. The limitations periods in Florida vary sharply by claim type. A legal or equitable action founded on a written instrument, which covers most written purchase contracts and leases, generally must be filed within five years. A claim on an oral or implied contract has four years, an action to rescind a contract has four years, and a fraud claim has four years from discovery, with an outside limit of twelve years. The one that catches people off guard is specific performance: an action seeking to compel completion of a sale carries a one-year period. If your goal is to force a closing, waiting to see whether the other side comes around can cost you the remedy entirely. Negligence claims, including some professional malpractice theories, run only two years for causes of action that accrued after the 2023 amendments to the statute. A claim to recover real property is barred unless the claimant or a predecessor was in possession within seven years before filing.

Landlords face a different set of deadlines, and mistakes here are costly because a defective notice can force a landlord to start over. For unpaid rent, the landlord must deliver a written demand, and the tenant has three days, not counting Saturdays, Sundays, or court-observed legal holidays, to pay or leave before the lease can be terminated. For other lease violations that can be fixed, the notice must give the tenant seven days to correct the problem. For violations that cannot be cured, such as intentional property destruction, the landlord may give a seven-day notice to vacate. A landlord who accepts partial rent after posting a nonpayment notice does not lose the right to proceed, but must either give a receipt stating the amount received and the new balance, deposit the funds in the court registry at filing, or serve a fresh notice reflecting the reduced amount.

As for where cases are heard, property disputes in Margate are filed in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, which sits in and for Broward County. Cases involving more than the county court limit are heard in circuit court, while smaller claims go to county court. Broward also maintains a complex business division within its circuit civil system that handles, among other matters, dissolutions of certain business entities and large business and construction litigation, which can be relevant when a property dispute is tangled up with a company. Disputes with an out-of-state party can sometimes be heard in the federal Southern District of Florida, which holds court in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, though federal jurisdiction depends on facts that need to be evaluated case by case.

Finally, avoid the common mistakes: do not record anything, change locks, collect rent from a disputed tenant, or sign a new agreement with the other side before speaking with counsel. If the other party is moving assets or about to transfer the property, tell your attorney immediately, because emergency injunctive relief only works if it is sought before the damage is done.

How Partition and Quiet Title Cases Actually Work

Partition is the usual answer when co-owners cannot agree. All partition actions are chancery matters, and the complaint must describe the land, name every owner and where they live, and state what share each one holds. If the court enters a judgment of partition, it appoints three commissioners, chosen by the court unless the parties agree on who they should be. The commissioners report on whether the land can be divided fairly. If they conclude that division would prejudice the owners, the court may order the property sold at public auction, with proceeds distributed according to each owner’s share. A court can allow a sale on credit for good cause, but at least one third of the purchase money must be paid down unless every party consents otherwise.

Inherited property gets a separate analysis. Florida’s Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act applies to partition actions filed on or after July 1, 2020, and it covers property held as tenants in common where there is no binding agreement among all the cotenants, at least one cotenant acquired title from a relative, and another qualifying condition is met, such as relatives holding twenty percent or more of the interests. When the property qualifies, the court must follow the Act’s procedures unless every cotenant agrees otherwise in writing, and a partition in kind is entered only if commissioners considered the statutory factors and found that dividing the land would prejudice the cotenants as a group. In practical terms, the Act gives family owners more protection against a forced sale than ordinary partition does.

Quiet title is the tool for clearing a cloud. The circuit court has jurisdiction over actions by anyone claiming legal or equitable title to land, and over cases where two or more people claim the same land from a common source, and it can cancel a conveyance or other evidence of title held by someone who is not the rightful owner. A plaintiff must generally trace title for at least seven years before filing unless the court orders otherwise, and the case may be brought in any county where part of the land sits. Where the claim rests on an allegedly fraudulent attempted conveyance, the statute allows summary procedure and directs the court to move the case up on its calendar.

Adverse possession claims, which sometimes appear in boundary and abandoned-property disputes, have their own rigid requirements. Without a written instrument, the claimant must show seven years of actual, continuous possession under a claim of title exclusive of any other right, and must file a return identifying the property by a full legal description. With color of title, the claim also requires a recorded instrument and seven years of continuous possession. These claims are hard to prove, which is exactly why owners facing one should respond early.

When the Property Is Held Through a Company

Many Margate rentals and small commercial buildings are owned through an LLC or corporation, and when the owners fall out, the real estate fight becomes a business divorce. Under Florida’s LLC statute, a court may dissolve a company at the request of a manager or member where the owners are deadlocked and irreparable injury to the company is threatened or occurring, where assets are being misappropriated or wasted, where controlling members are acting illegally or fraudulently, or where it is no longer reasonably practicable to operate under the operating agreement. In those proceedings the court can appoint a receiver or custodian after a hearing with notice to the parties, or order a buyout of the petitioning member’s interest. If the operating agreement already contains a deadlock sale provision that was properly started before the court finds deadlock, that provision takes priority over a dissolution order.

Corporations work somewhat differently. A shareholder who petitions for dissolution may find the corporation or the other shareholders electing to buy the petitioner out at fair value, and if the parties agree on value and terms within 60 days after the first election is filed, the court enters an order on those terms. The corporation must notify the other shareholders within 30 days of the proceeding’s start that they can avoid dissolution by electing to purchase. Throughout, the court can issue injunctions and take steps to preserve assets. Because an election to purchase is generally irrevocable, deciding whether to petition, defend, or buy is a decision worth making with counsel in the room.

Questions About Real Estate Litigation in Margate

How long do I have to sue over a breached real estate contract in Florida?

For a written contract, the general period is five years. For an oral or implied contract it is four years. Specific performance, which asks the court to order the sale to go through, is subject to a one-year period, so a buyer who wants the property should not wait.

What is specific performance, and when can a court order it?

Specific performance is a court order requiring a party to carry out the contract as written instead of paying damages. Because every parcel of real estate is considered unique, courts will sometimes order a sale to be completed. It was the remedy awarded to one of our clients after a five-day bench trial in Broward County Circuit Court involving a commercial real estate contract.

Can one co-owner force the sale of a property we own together?

Generally, yes. Any co-owner can file a partition action, and if the property cannot be divided fairly, the court can order it sold and the proceeds shared in proportion to each owner’s interest. Inherited family property may be protected by additional procedures under the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act.

What is a quiet title action?

It is a lawsuit asking the court to declare who owns a piece of land and to remove competing claims or recorded documents that cloud the title. It is commonly used after disputed transfers, forged or defective deeds, and inheritance disagreements.

How long does a landlord have to give a tenant before filing for eviction?

For nonpayment, the tenant gets three days after delivery of the written demand, excluding weekends and court-observed holidays. For curable lease violations the notice gives seven days to fix the problem, and for incurable violations the landlord can give a seven-day notice to vacate. A defective notice can derail the entire case.

If a landlord accepts partial rent, is the eviction ruined?

No. Accepting partial rent does not waive the right to terminate or sue, but the landlord must handle it correctly by giving a dated receipt with the balance due, placing the money in the court registry when filing, or serving a new notice for the lower amount.

My co-owner is about to sell or mortgage our property. Can I stop it?

Possibly. Courts can issue temporary and permanent injunctions to preserve property while a dispute is pending. Speed matters, because an injunction is far easier to obtain before a deed or mortgage is recorded than to undo afterward.

Will my case be heard in county court or circuit court?

It depends on the amount in controversy and the type of relief. Smaller money claims go to county court, while larger claims, partition, quiet title, and injunction cases are handled in circuit court. Broward’s circuit also has a complex business division that hears certain large business disputes.

I live in New York and own a rental near Margate. Do I have to fly down for every hearing?

No. We regularly represent clients from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut who own property here. We handle the local court appearances, keep you informed at each stage, and schedule calls at times that work for you.

Is it worth hiring a lawyer for a smaller property dispute?

Often, yes, particularly when the issue is title, a forced sale, or a notice problem that could lose you your rights. Many disputes also resolve through negotiation or mediation, and an early assessment can show whether a negotiated outcome is realistic before litigation costs build up.

Can a real estate dispute be sent to mediation or arbitration instead of court?

Yes. Many contracts require it, and even when they do not, parties often choose it to save time and expense. Our attorneys are experienced in both and will pursue whichever path is most likely to reach your goal.

What if the dispute involves a deadlocked LLC that owns the property?

The operating agreement controls first, including any buyout or deadlock sale provision. If it does not resolve the problem, Florida law gives a court tools such as appointing a receiver or custodian, ordering a buyout, or dissolving the company when deadlock threatens irreparable injury.

Serving Real Estate Litigation Clients Across Margate and South Florida

For property owners in Margate, we handle disputes throughout the surrounding Broward County communities, including Coconut Creek, Coral Springs, Tamarac, Pompano Beach, Parkland, Deerfield Beach, Lauderhill, Sunrise, Plantation, and Fort Lauderdale. We also represent clients in Hollywood, Davie, Weston, and Pembroke Pines, as well as the rest of Broward County. To the north, we serve Palm Beach County clients in Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Lake Worth, Wellington, Palm Beach Gardens, and West Palm Beach. Many of our clients live in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut and hold investment property or a share of real estate in these communities, and we manage the local proceedings so that distance is not an obstacle.

Speak With a Margate Real Estate Litigation Attorney Before the Deadline Runs

The right time to talk to a Margate real estate litigation attorney is while you still have choices: before a contract claim expires, before a co-owner sells, and before a defective notice costs you months. Contact the Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team to discuss your property dispute, whether you are a buyer, seller, landlord, investor, or one of several family members who inherited a property no one can agree on. Call to schedule a consultation, and we will tell you plainly what your options are and which path makes sense for your goals and your budget.