So. Cal. Realty Law, APC

Focus and practice areas

Real estate is the whole of the work here, and the firm has practiced in that field from San Diego since 1998. It represents landlords, property owners, and real estate investors in San Diego and across Southern California. The registered entity behind the brand is So. Cal. Realty Law, APC.

The litigation side covers unlawful detainer and eviction proceedings, together with broader property disputes: quiet title actions, easement conflicts, breach of contract claims, and fraud. Unlawful detainer is the formal court process a landlord uses to recover possession of a property, and it moves on a faster schedule than most civil cases. Quiet title actions ask a court to settle who legally owns a parcel when the record is clouded or contested. Easement conflicts turn on who may use a strip of land and for what, which often means reading old deeds against current use.

Transactions, transfers, and appeals

On the transactional side, the firm advises on LLC formation and asset protection, prepares property transfers through grant deeds, quitclaim deeds, and transfer on death deeds, reviews and drafts leases, and handles business and real estate transactions. It also files property tax assessment appeals, which go before a county board that hears challenges to a property's assessed value. A successful appeal lowers the taxable value, so these filings can matter to an investor's returns as much as any single lease. In my opinion, that pairing of courtroom work and document work lets one firm handle both the paperwork on a property and any dispute that later touches it.

Each transfer tool does a different job. A grant deed passes title with a basic promise that the seller holds it clear. A quitclaim deed hands over whatever interest a person has, with no such promise, which suits transfers between family members or spouses. A transfer on death deed lets an owner name who receives the property at death without probate. Sorting out which one fits a given transfer is part of the transactional work the firm names.

How the team is built

Shanna Welsh-Levin leads the firm as its principal attorney and litigation counsel. She founded the firm and has twenty years of experience as a California real estate attorney. She also authored legislation that became the California short sale anti-deficiency statute, California Code of Civil Procedure section 580e.

That statute carries real weight in property work. After a short sale of a home, an anti-deficiency rule stops a lender from later pursuing the borrower for the gap between the sale price and the loan balance. A lawyer who wrote the text that became such a law has worked the subject at the level of the statute itself. As a reviewer, I read that credential as a concrete marker of depth in California real estate law, and the citation to section 580e points a reader straight to the source.

The named team divides along transactional and litigation lines. Adam Stone is a senior transactional and litigation attorney. Bryan Gonzales holds the title of senior attorney. Michelle N. Allec Arreola is a litigation attorney. Kush Nagin is a litigation attorney assigned to landlord services. Those titles point to a group set up to carry both deal work and courtroom work within one firm.

Who the firm represents

The client base centers on landlords, property owners, and real estate investors. Those are clients whose problems often touch both contracts and courtrooms at once. A lease question can start as a drafting matter and end as an unlawful detainer filing. A boundary disagreement can begin with a deed and move into a quiet title action.

The firm's landlord services point to steady work in tenancy matters, where notice requirements and filing deadlines follow strict rules under California law. Eviction cases reward close attention to procedure, since a defective notice can send a landlord back to the start. Having a litigation attorney assigned to landlord services shows the firm treats that volume as a dedicated line of work. That steady tenancy work also sits close to the firm's lease drafting, so a client can have the same team write a lease and later enforce it.

How clients work with the team

The firm describes itself as a boutique practice. Its team works in a virtual office environment, and most matters can be handled without an in-person visit. For an owner whose properties sit in different parts of Southern California, that arrangement keeps the work moving without travel to a single office.

The mix of services gives a sense of how the firm fits into a property owner's year. Entity formation and deed preparation belong to the quiet stretches. Lease review sits at the start of a tenancy, and property tax appeals arrive on the county's schedule. Eviction and litigation come when something breaks down. The firm has worked across that whole span since 1998 from its San Diego base.