Biography

Jeffery Woo has over 20 years of experience in real estate, general business and landlord-tenant litigation; and real estate transactions.  He represents major institutional and individual property owners, real estate brokers, commercial office and retail property developers, property buyers and sellers, and homeowners associations. 

Having worked within his family's real estate leasing business from an early age, Mr. Woo has been involved in real estate matters his entire life and knows firsthand the issues that property owners face.  As a licensed real estate broker, he also provides his broker clients an added insight into the legal challenges and issues they must confront regularly. 

Mr. Woo represents his clients in matters concerning tenant buyouts; residential and commercial unlawful detainer and wrongful eviction; leasing, purchase and sale contract disputes; failure to disclose; constructive trusts; contract rescission; and partition actions.  He also represents businesses and individuals in real estate transactions, including acquisitions, sales, and leases.

Before joining Sedgwick, Mr. Woo managed the six-attorney firm of Woo & Associates, where he focused on real estate disputes and transactions and general business litigation matters.

Representative Matters

• Representation of large institutional property owners and individuals in thousands of tenant buyouts, residential and commercial unlawful detainer actions, wrongful eviction and uninhabitable condition actions.
• Representation of commercial office and retail property developers in leasing, purchase and sale matters.
• Prosecution and defense of numerous real estate related matters, including failure to disclose, breach of purchase and sales contracts, partition actions, constructive trusts, rescission of contract, specific performance of contracts, prescriptive easement, and boundary disputes.
• Representation of homeowners associations as general counsel and in specific litigation.
• Defense of Hong Kong lender in a construction defects case.
• Prosecution of class action suit on behalf of Asian residents of a San Francisco public housing project.
• Due diligence on approximately $27 million worth of real property for the Resolution Trust Corporation.

Publications (selected)

• Feature, “Legal Eagle,” San Francisco Apartment Magazine, June 2010.
• “The New Prospector: Buying Tenant Occupied Foreclosed Property Under The San Francisco Rent Ordinance,” San Francisco Apartment Magazine, October 26th, 2009.
• “Calculated Risk Can Lead to Big Rewards: Buying Tenant Occupied Foreclosed Property Under Oakland’s Just Cause Eviction Ordinance,” Rental Housing Magazine, February 2009.
• “Subletting in Oakland,” Rental Housing Magazine, May 2008.
• “Supervisor Daly’s New Proposals Seek to Limit the Rights of Property Owners,” Chinese Real Estate Association of America Newsletter.
• “CREAA Opposes Local Ballot Initiatives,” Chinese Real Estate Association of America Newsletter.
• “New Rent Ordinance Disclosure Laws In San Francisco,” Chinese Real Estate Association of America Newsletter.
• “What Proposition H Means to Realtors,” Broker-Agent Magazine, March 2006
• "Protected Tenants & Estoppels: Do You Know What You Need to Know?”, Broker-Agent Magazine, January 2007
• “Buying and Selling Tenant-Occupied Single Family Homes,” Broker-Agent Magazine, June 2006
• “A Brief History of TICs in San Francisco,” San Francisco Examiner, April 8-9, 2006
• “A Quiet Revolution - New TIC Financing,” SF Apartment Magazine, August 2005
• “Tenant Buy-Outs: Treason or Reason,” SF Apartment Magazine, June 2005
• “Conversations with the Tiger: A Glimpse into the Minds of Three Tenant Attorneys,” SF Apartment Magazine, March 2005
• “Owner Move-In Evictions under Measure EE,” Rental Housing Magazine, June 2004 
• “The Essentials of Measure EE,” Rental Housing Magazine, May 2004
• "Proving the Law of Unintended Consequences: California’s New Monolingual Contract Regulation,” SF Apartment Magazine, April 2004
• “Avoiding False Claims of Illegal Discrimination,” SF Apartment Magazine, July 2003

Presentations

Mr. Woo is a much-sought-after speaker and regularly addresses property owners, trade associations, other attorneys, real estate professionals and broker organizations.  His presentation topics have included: 

• “Buying and Selling Tenant Occupied Property in San Francisco,” San Francisco Association of Realtors, San Francisco, CA, March 2009.
• “Buying Tenant Occupied Properties in San Francisco – Legal Updates on the Ellis Act, Owner Move-Ins, Condo-Conversion and Tenant Buyouts”
• “Turning Tenant-Occupied Buildings into TIC Opportunities in San Francisco”
• “Strategies for Buying and Selling Tenant Occupied Property- Owner Move-Ins, Ellis Act Evictions, and Tenant Buy-Outs”
• “Landlord and Tenant Law in California”
• “Landlording 101: Property Management for Those Who Manage Their Own Property”
• “The Importance of Having a Written Residential Lease”
• “Advanced Landlord and Tenant Law in California”
• “Evictions: Residential and Commercial in California”
• “Cultural Diversity Day Workshops on TDS and Supplemental TDS for Realtors”
• “Residential Landlord/Tenant Law in California After Passage of Measure EE in Oakland”

Affiliations, Activities and Accomplishments

Mr. Woo is a member of the board of directors of the San Francisco Association of Realtors and San Francisco Apartment Association.  He is past president of the Chinese Real Estate Association of America, a past director of the Asian Real Estate Association of America and a founding director of the Asian Real Estate Association of the East Bay.  A member of the Bar Association of San Francisco (BASF), Mr. Woo also belongs to the Asian Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area.

Mr. Woo participates in BASF’s Volunteer Legal Services Program and is a six-time recipient of the organization’s Outstanding Volunteer in Public Service Award.  He also volunteers his time as a mediator with the San Francisco Superior Court’s Early Settlement Program.  A former treasurer for the Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco, Mr. Woo currently serves as general counsel for the Chinese Historical Society of America.

Mr. Woo has been recognized as a Northern California "Super Lawyer," an honor bestowed on the top five percent of lawyers in the region, since 2006.

Mr. Woo is a Masters in City Planning candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, with an emphasis in Public/Private Project Development and Housing.