Just two years after opening his law office in Mississauga, Devesh Gupta had the unique distinction of closing more than $100 million in commercial real estate transactions.
“Last year was a boom year for us – and our firm specializes in real estate, both commercial and residential,” young Devesh told the Voice.
Billed as The ‘Peel Region’s Trusted Law Firm’, Prudent Law opened its office in 2015 at 33 City Centre Drive in Mississauga.
Devesh graduated from the Schulich School of Business with Honours and went to Law School at the University of Western Ontario. In his words: “At law school, I specialized in real estate and planning law and learnt the intricacies of land development, commercial real estate, and corporate law.”
As part of this specialization, Devesh won the Ontario Expropriation Association award for 2011 for my paper titled “A summary of Injurious Affection – Where no land of the claimant is expropriated”.
The award was a great honour as it is judged by some of the best minds in the planning and development community and is awarded to only one paper every year.
“After law school, I worked for a Bay Street law firm and further developed my knowledge in land development and real estate law.”
Earlier, he articled with the City of London and delved into the various aspects of municipal law. Devesh then made a switch to corporate and civil litigation while learning the business of law at a law firm in Mississauga. “Here, I gained a lot of experience in civil litigation involving shareholder disputes, accounts receivable collection, real estate litigation, among others.”
In 2015, Devesh set out on his own and started Prudent Law – with the objective of providing good customer service.
Over the past two years, the firm has established a reputation for providing legal advice that is simple, clear, and most importantly, accurate. Prudent has represented various individuals and corporations, both big and small.
Devesh says: “We continue to keep customer service at the core of our firm even as we have grown to three full time lawyers and several support staff.”
Prudent Law specializes in real estate, both commercial and residential, corporate law, and civil and corporate litigation. The focus of the firm, explains Devesh, is to ensure that all clients are able to talk with their lawyer without feeling rushed for time and without having to worry about paying for every minute. Prudent is today specialized in handling transactions related to hotels, plazas, shopping mall and vacant lands.
“A lawyer will sit with you and review all the paperwork in your transaction. We will work with you to make sure that you are comfortable and confident about the paperwork you are being asked to sign, BEFORE you sign it.”
A free initial consultation is offered where clients can discuss legal issues, understand alternatives, and understand the costs associated with each alternative.
Prudent also has a fixed fee structure – quoting a fixed fee for most alternatives that are provided. This fee will not change over the duration of the case.
Today, Prudent Law is the exclusive law firm for Kingsway Real Estate Brokerage, where the firm has set up satellite office.
“The best compliment to our work is that all of our clients return to us for work after they have tried us once. I am now looking forward to growing Prudent Law and to help more people with their real estate transactions, in corporate matter, and their civil litigation cases. These include breach of contract cases and handling of shareholder/corporate issues.”
In the corporate law field, the firm handles everything from start-ups to mergers and acquisitions. Real estate transactions are undertaken in the Peel region as well as across Ontario.
Prudent also offers specialty services to clients, including acting for private lenders. The firm has closed hundreds of private mortgages ranging from as low as $10,000 to a million dollars. “Private mortgage lending is a very specialized business and we have the expertise and experience to be able to assist clients with private lending.” In 2017, Prudent funded over $30 million in private mortgages. For lenders, the firm creates and registers mortgages against properties to protect the lenders’ money “We create a custom mortgage document for each private mortgage.”
“Our advice to first-time homebuyers is that they must make sure that they understand what they are getting into before signing on any dotted lines.”
Devesh comes from a business family that is involved in the specialized clothing business with a factory in Mississauga. The family firm manufactures bullet proof vests and other custom apparel for the export market.
Devesh is married to Shivani Gupta Sharma, who is a Director of the Crown Group of Hotels, one of the fastest growing hospitality groups in Canada with their properties flying the international Marriott, Best Western, Hilton and Choice flags. The company also owns the Courtyard Marriott in Brampton. The Crown Group is helmed by Shivani and her brother Sameer Sharma. – BM