Class Information

Fall 2026

5345 Real Estate Transactions - ZALE- 25812

Professor(s): Kellen Zale (FACULTY)

Credits: 3

Course Areas: Real Property, Trusts and Estates 

Time: 2:30p-4:00p  MW  Location: 210 

Course Outline: This course provides an introduction to real estate transactions and covers a wide range of legal issues relating to the conveyancing and financing of real property. The first part of the course covers key legal issues and documents in a typical real estate transaction and considers the purposes and priorities of each phase of a real estate transaction, including how to manage client risk in a transaction. The second part of the course focuses on real estate finance and covers the key legal issues relating to mortgage law and other aspects of real estate finance. The primary focus is on residential transactions, but the course will also cover some issues related to commercial transactions. The objectives of this course are to: (1) gain a foundation in the substantive law of real estate transactions; (2) apply critical legal thinking to identify and understand controlling legal principles applicable to the subject matter; (3) develop an understanding the ethical and policy issues related to the subject matter; (4) integrate the doctrinal study of the subject matter with the analytical and practical skills necessary to the practice of law, including drafting and reviewing portions of real estate documents used in practice; and (5) develop skills in legal analysis, reasoning, problem-solving; and written and oral communication related to real estate law.

Course Syllabus: Syllabus

Course Notes: (Face-to-Face)  The UH registration system instruction mode for this course is listed in parenthesis. For this instruction mode, instructors and students are expected to normally be physically present in the classroom. If the course has a final examination, it will be in a classroom requiring your physical presence. Other assessment, such as a mid term exam, may also be in a classroom. Whether this instructor will offer “remote presence” (starting a zoom meeting from the podium computer to enable student remote access on an occasional basis) for part or all of the semester is not known, but students should not rely on an expectation that remote presence will be available.

Prerequisites:  

First Day Assignments:

Final Exam Schedule:     

This course will have:
Exam:
Paper:

Satisfies Senior Upper Level Writing Requirement: No

Experiential Course Type: No

Bar Course: No

DistanceEd ABA: No

Pass-Fail Student Election: Available

Course Materials

Book(s) Required

Course Materials: Malloy et al., REAL ESTATE TRANSACTIONS (Aspen, 6th ed. 2024) ISBN: 978-1543826234

Note: Other editions of this casebook are NOT equivalent substitutes; students must purchase the required edition