Cell Tower Help

WWW.CELLTOWERHELP.COM 407.476.3838 So… The tower company has come to you and wants to drastically renegotiate your lease. They tell you that if you don’t agree to a 20% cut, they’ll vacate the site and end the lease. You panic. This income has been steady and you rely on it to cover your daughter’s college tuition or maybe it covers your utilities. You cannot afford to lose this valuable asset. Maybe, you’ll accept the rent reduction and barely make ends meet. You can figure it out. Wait. Why just settle? This is a renegotiation. This can go two ways. You get a say in this, too. So. You hit up the ever trusty google and start researching what your options are. Click and click again, every site and post and article is directed to how the carrier or tower company is justified in wanting to reduce costs. They have a bottom line and it doesn’t matter who they step on to get to it. What about your bottom line? Who’s out there advising the little guy? How come your bott...

WWW.CELLTOWERHELP.COM 407.476.3838 SBA Communications Corporation is an American company founded in 1989, and is based out of Boca Raton, Florida. SBA owns and operates wireless communications towers primarily in the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama, and currently is the third largest cell tower operator and developers in the United States. SBA presently operates over 15,000 tower sites in the United States, and over 2,500 additional tower sites abroad, mostly being concentrated in Latin America. SBA has been part of significant tower purchases. In 2012, SBA purchased over 2,300 cell towers and the rights associated therewith for Mobilite. The majority of these towers have T-Mobile as the primary or anchor tenant. SBA, also in 2012, purchased over 3,000 cell towers and the rights related to those sites from TowerCo. These sites are located throughout the United States and are anchored by Sprint as their primary tenant. ...

WWW.CELLTOWERHELP.COM 407.476.3838 Black Dot Wireless describes themselves as an internationally recognized leader in lease management (aka lease optimization), and as being the pioneers of the first expense reduction “lease optimization” program for wireless carriers across the United States and abroad. These programs have one goal, and it is to substantially reduce wireless carrier and tower company operations expense. Black Dot has, and continues to, work on behalf of companies like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Sprint, with their primary focus these days being on behalf of AT&T. Black Dot primarily contacts property owners for the following: Lease Extension Requests: Black Dot will contact property owners who have leases with wireless carriers, and those leases have five (5) years or less remaining on the current lease term. Rent Reduction Requests: Black Dot will contact a property owner and request that they drastically reduce current ren...

WWW.CELLTOWERHELP.COM ALEX F. BLASSCYK - PRESIDENT & CEO 407.476.3838 When wireless carriers identify areas where they need to build new cellular towers, they are often located on private property. If a property owner agrees to let a wireless carrier install a tower, the carrier and property owner enter into a long-term ground lease agreement. Under the terms of the cell tower lease, the wireless carrier pays the property owner monthly rent for use of his or her land. The monthly payment for the cell tower lease is based on the type of tower installed, the location (urban, suburban, rural) and also how critical the location is to the carrier’s network. A cell tower lease buyout occurs when a property owner agrees to sell his or her lease to a ground lease acquisition company for a lump sum of cash. While the lump sum is often a significant amount of money, it is less than the cumulative value of the monthly rent over the life of the lease. Why do prope...

WWW.CELLTOWERHELP.COM ALEX F. BLASSCYK - PRESIDENT & CEO 407.476.3838 1031 Exchange Helping our clients save money on their taxes is part of our job at Main Stream Telecom II, LLC. A 1031 exchange is one of the ways we achieve that goal. Instead of just selling your lease (referred to as a lease assignment), which will likely result in a capital gains tax bill for you, you can defer this tax by granting an easement around your cell tower site. But wait a minute. If a 1031 exchange is about selling one property and buying another, how can you participate by selling your cell tower lease? The answer is by placing an easement under the cell tower site (which can simply mirror the existing easement, if there is one), it turns your cell tower lease sale into a real property sale, generally making it eligible for a 1031 exchange. Having an easement generally does not affect your ownership of the land, including your ability to sell it. Section 1031 of the Internal R...

WWW.CELLTOWERHELP.COM ALEX F. BLASSCYK - PRESIDENT & CEO 407.476.3838 There are many reasons why our customers choose to sell their cell tower lease for a lump sum of cash. Some use the money to pay down debt, cover medical expenses, pay for college, or fund their retirement. Others use their lease buyout cash to purchase real estate or expand their business. If you need cash to cover a major expense right now, the decision to sell your cell tower lease might be an easy one for you to make, especially if you don’t have an alternative source for raising cash. If your site meets our criteria, we can represent you as you complete a lease purchase transaction in a straightforward, timely manner, and get cash into your hands quickly so that you can meet that urgent expense. But what if you don’t need for cash right now? Does that mean that selling your cell tower lease is a bad idea? Before we answer that, let’s back up and consider your ground lease for what...