Can a business entity legally lease and sell its own real estate?

[Jonathan Bowen]

I've been selling real estate for a long time but I've never thought about this issue before... Can a business entity legally lease and sell its own real estate holdings? Think about it for a minute... Individual homeowners can legally lease and sell their own properties, that makes sense, right? Let's say an owner of a business entity wants to lease or sell its business entity's own real estate. Let's say an owner of a business entity tasks an employee with leasing or selling the business entity's own real estate. Aren't those individuals acting as unlicensed real estate agents on behalf of the business entity? Aren't they, in effect, violating real estate licensing laws? I'm sure there's settled case law on this but I'm just not aware of any. Thoughts?

[Jenifer Levini]

Hello @Jonathan Bowen, under the law an entity such as a c-corp, b-corp, LLC, etc. has the same contracting rights as an individual person. If, in your state, a person can sell (or lease) their own real estate holdings, then a formed entity should be able to do the same.

An interesting variation would be whether a DBA formed within an entity, or entities that are nested within entities could sell wholly-owned real estate. In those cases one would look to the Operating Agreement or corporate bylaws to see the power the mother company granted to its subsidiaries.