A partner in the firm for 20 years, Carmela Di Talia heads the firm’s real estate, estate planning, estate administration and corporate areas of practice. Having joined the firm in 1995 upon graduation from law school, Carmela has devoted her legal career to practicing law on the east end of Long Island.
While her current practice is transactional, when Carmela joined the firm as a first year associate, she was primarily litigating. She handled commercial cases, contract disputes, real estate related cases and then shifted her litigation practice to contested estates, accountings, and other matters before the Surrogate’s Court.
Drawing on this experience and knowledge, Carmela brings a multi-faceted approach to her representation of individuals, families, fiduciaries, beneficiaries, landowners, builders, and businesses in connection with all aspects of real estate transactions, business operations and transactions, estate planning, and estate administration. Often her clients’ needs overlap the various areas of practice. The skills she has developed allow her to seamlessly counsel her clients and address their inter-related concerns and issues. Given her background, Carmela has enjoyed long-standing relationships with many clients over 30 years of practice, helping them through various stages of their personal and business lives.
Carmela’s broad-ranging real estate practice includes both simple and complex residential and commercial transactions. She assists clients with purchases and sales of existing and new homes, leasing of homes, including Hamptons summer rentals, purchasing or leasing property for the start-up or expansion of their businesses, leasing property to farmers, cellular telephone companies, and other businesses, negotiation of construction contracts, option agreements, easements, tax-free or like-kind exchanges, and financing for purchases. Carmela has represented banks, private lenders and farm lenders. She handles sales of subdivisions for development, including both undeveloped lots and properties with new homes constructed thereon. Her real estate practice also includes transfers of farm and other properties for conservation and charitable purposes through outright sales of fee title to local municipalities, sales of development rights, and the imposition of conservation easements and enhanced conservation easements.
Additionally, Carmela counsels clients on the formation and operation of various types of business entities, including corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies, and not-for-profit corporations. She assists her clients in sales and acquisitions of businesses, including succession planning. She represents associations of homeowners and seasonal communities on the east end of Long Island, as well as golf courses in the operation of their business, financing matters, and sales of memberships.
Carmela prepares estate planning documents to assist clients in passing on and preserving their assets, minimizing estate taxes, making lifetime gifts, and planning for their spouses, minor children and other family members. Her clients range from young families whose initial priorities in creating an estate plan may be to protect their minor children to local farm families who have generational land wealth to business owners who need to balance the needs of their family with the desire for continuity of their business. In the area of estate administration, Carmela probates wills, administers intestate estates, and advises fiduciaries and beneficiaries.
Carmela has received Martindale Hubbell’s highest peer review rating of “AV” as well as its Platinum Client Champion Award. Martindale Hubbell also selected her as one of its “Top Rated Lawyers in Real Estate.” In addition, she authored a chapter titled “Preliminary Will Contest Issues” in the publication of Inside the Minds: Strategies for Trust and Estates in New York, 2014 edition.
She was a Director of the Suffolk County Women’s Bar Association from 2012 to 2015. From 2011 through 2013, she also served on the Board of Directors of the Riverhead Chamber of Commerce, holding the office of Secretary of the Chamber in 2012 and 2013. In recognition of her contribution to the Riverhead Chamber of Commerce, Carmela was honored as its 2012 Director of the Year.
