Land Acquisition: Beyond a transaction

Land acquisition is the gateway to growth in real estate development, infrastructure projects, and energy expansion. While this may look like a plain vanilla legal swap, acquiring land is never a straightforward process. The process encompasses financial, regulatory, environmental and interpersonal facets that can play a critical role in deciding if a project becomes a success or a failure. Land acquisition describes the process where developers, government agencies, or private companies procure land rights aimed at a given purpose, either by purchase, lease, easement, or eminent domain. It’s an important piece of initial work that dictates both what work a project can continue and in what ways. The trick is to find the property (of course under the agreed conditions), but also to consider the budget, timetable and legality of the whole process. Knowing where to look for land that meets both strategic and logistical requirements for development is one of the major hurdles t...