Brandon: You made a good point about investors who question the cost of seeking professional advice in setting up the proper entity for their investment strategy: if you can’t afford the advice, you probably aren’t ready for it. Many new investors get tricked into spending more money on asset protection than assets when they start out. If they make mistakes, they can be costly and distracting. Another caution I would add to your podcast is to make sure you have your entity registered in the state where you own the property, and check your home state (where you live) for the requirements to file tax returns for your home state when you are a managing member of an LLC in another state. As you said, talk to your CPA and your attorney before you waste a lot of money.

Brandon, I have multiple LLCs, but none for the properties I own. The LLCs are used for private lending partnerships, the operating agreement defines the contributions, partners, and percentages. Because my partners (so far) have been trustworthy, we generally do not have any issues. The LLCs are short lived. Why my properties are not in LLCs, I’m not a lawyer…. With that said, for the properties a couple of areas that was missed in your blog was the entire concept of liability and “piercing the corporate veil”. If you have the property in an LLC and you are doing the work personally on the property, *you* are liable because it was *you* doing the work. Consider that ya hang a ceiling fan, it falls and someone gets hurt. You hung the fan, not the LLC. This one I heard from a lawyer. To protect for this, ya need a blanket liability policy. These are cheap, until your kids start driving, but that’s another story. For $2M, mine is $170 a year. When the kid goes on it for driving it will hit $400. Depending on the state, I live in NC, the LLC costs about $125 to setup and another $1xx every year to maintain if you file the paperwork yourself. To have a lawyer do it the first time cost me north of $400. At tax time my K1 cost $400 a piece by the account. Closing, the only people that have told me that an LLC is worthwhile for my properties are the people with something to gain, the lawyers and the accountants.

Brandon, I have multiple LLCs, but none for the properties I own. The LLCs are used for private lending partnerships, the operating agreement defines the contributions, partners, and percentages. Because my partners (so far) have been trustworthy, we generally do not have any issues. The LLCs are short lived. Why my properties are not in LLCs, I’m not a lawyer…. With that said, for the properties a couple of areas that was missed in your blog was the entire concept of liability and “piercing the corporate veil”. If you have the property in an LLC and you are doing the work personally on the property, *you* are liable because it was *you* doing the work. Consider that ya hang a ceiling fan, it falls and someone gets hurt. You hung the fan, not the LLC. This one I heard from a lawyer. To protect for this, ya need a blanket liability policy. These are cheap, until your kids start driving, but that’s another story. For $2M, mine is $170 a year. When the kid goes on it for driving it will hit $400. Depending on the state, I live in NC, the LLC costs about $125 to setup and another $1xx every year to maintain if you file the paperwork yourself. To have a lawyer do it the first time cost me north of $400. At tax time my K1 cost $400 a piece by the account. Closing, the only people that have told me that an LLC is worthwhile for my properties are the people with something to gain, the lawyers and the accountants.

Can you talk about Land Trust?