{"id":97329,"date":"2018-03-09T11:30:42","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T18:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=97329"},"modified":"2021-03-16T13:50:47","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T19:50:47","slug":"landlord-anonymity-over-15-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/landlord-anonymity-over-15-years","title":{"rendered":"What I’ve Learned About Landlord Anonymity Over 15 Years in the Rental Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can landlords be truly anonymous in the 21st<\/sup> Century?<\/p>\n

Of course not. But that doesn\u2019t mean it has to be easy to figure out who a property\u2019s owner is or where to find them.<\/p>\n

I have the pleasure of joining an asset protection attorney next week for a live panel on landlord privacy and asset protection, which has me thinking a lot about landlord anonymity. So I thought I\u2019d share with you what I\u2019ve learned over 15 years in the rental industry, as both a landlord and renter. (I remain a renter to this day, although I did have a pleasant three-year stint as a homeowner once.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do landlords need privacy? Why does anyone need privacy if they have nothing to hide?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019s always a goodie-two-shoes who thinks privacy is some kind of sin reserved for criminals. That everyone\u2019s laundry should just be on display all the time to the entire world. I\u2019ll tell you why landlords need privacy:\u00a0because I\u2019ve had tenants show up at my fricking house at 8:30 at night while I was finishing dinner and wooing a beautiful woman<\/em>.<\/p>\n

(Who\u2019s now my wife, so all you goodie-two-shoes can lay off the judging already!)<\/p>\n

Landlords are small business owners. We deserve to draw our own boundaries and not have customers calling at all hours of the day or showing up at our homes.<\/p>\n

In other words, we\u2019re entitled to however much privacy we feel is appropriate. Here are some measures landlords can take, when they\u2014we\u2014want to draw boundaries between ourselves and the entitled, self-righteous, litigious world out there.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

P.O. Boxes<\/h2>\n

Don\u2019t want your tenants (or anyone else, for that matter) showing up at your door in the middle of your date night or dinner party?<\/p>\n

Use a P.O. box for all official landlord mail.<\/p>\n

P.O. boxes are cheap; you can rent one for as little as $5\/month. Nowadays, you can use a street address, rather than an obvious P.O. box address, even with official USPS P.O. boxes.
\n
\nRelated:<\/strong> 3 Steps to Use an Anonymous Trust to Hide Company Ownership<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

You can also authorize the post office or the private mail service to sign for your certified mail and packages.<\/p>\n

The best part? You don\u2019t have to be local. There are private mail services that let you view your unopened mail online, and then select Shred, Forward, or Open & Scan to view the mail online. (I use St. Brendan\u2019s Isle<\/a>, if you\u2019re looking for a recommendation. Tell them I sent you, maybe they\u2019ll give me a free month or something. Well, OK, they probably won\u2019t. But it\u2019s nice to feel appreciated.)<\/p>\n

Anonymous Phone Forwarding<\/h2>\n

By now everyone\u2019s familiar with Google Voice and other anonymous phone numbers. Many are free.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t want tenants knowing your home phone number, or even your mobile number, if you want any hope of anonymity.<\/p>\n

These phone forwarding services also let you quickly and easily switch forwarding off an on with a click of a button. So, if you\u2019re going to bed and want to leave your phone on in case your teenage daughter has an emergency, but you don\u2019t want tenants calling you at midnight, you can switch off access from the latter while remaining available to the former.<\/p>\n

Social Media<\/h2>\n

People are such exhibitionists these days on their social media accounts. \u201cLook what I had for breakfast! Look at my latest outfit that I went into credit card debt to buy! Look at the face my infant made when she farted!\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s tedious.<\/p>\n

Alright, alright, this isn\u2019t supposed to be a rant\u2014or at least not just<\/em> a rant.<\/p>\n

Anyone who cares about privacy and who also wants to have social media accounts, has a very simple option available: Change your privacy settings so that only your friends can see your posts.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Brian, then not everyone will be able to see photos of my adorable six-month-old daughter farting!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

To which I can only respond: Do you think anyone other than your friends want <\/em>to?<\/p>\n

Seriously, though, you don\u2019t want your tenants friending you on social media. If you absolutely must interact with your tenants on social media, do so as your official business page and manage it from a separate personal account with a nickname or pseudonym.<\/p>\n

Separate Bank Accounts<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m not going to spend much time here, but landlords should have separate bank accounts so that they don\u2019t commingle their personal funds and their rental business funds.<\/p>\n

Because yes, your rentals are a business. Even if you\u2019re a sole proprietor, you need to treat your rental investing business as (you guessed it!) a business.<\/p>\n

It keeps your accounting cleaner. It keeps your taxes cleaner. And if you choose to own your rentals under a legal entity (more on that shortly), you\u2019ll need separate accounts if you want any protection whatsoever.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The \u201cI\u2019m the Manager\u201d Trick<\/h2>\n

One of the (dozens of) tricks we teach in our property management course is to never, ever introduce yourself as the \u201cowner\u201d or \u201clandlord.\u201d You\u2019re the \u201cmanager.\u201d End of story.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, you give up all your privacy and anonymity in your first breath of introduction.
\n
\nRelated:<\/strong> Can Investors & Landlords Own Real Estate Anonymously (Or is Privacy Dead)?<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

But beyond simply maintaining anonymity as the owner, when you\u2019re just the manager, you give yourself an extra layer of distance from all decisions (at least in the eyes of the tenants). You can say things like \u201cOk, I understand your request. I\u2019ll pass it along to the owner and will get back to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or here’s another one: \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but the owner\u2019s policy is that she doesn\u2019t allow deadbeat boyfriends<\/a> to move in without passing the tenant screening like every other resident.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hiring a Property Manager<\/h2>\n

Similarly, when you a hire a property manager, you put one more degree of separation between you and the renters.<\/p>\n

They know the property manager\u2019s name and number and mailing address. They don\u2019t know yours.<\/p>\n

And they certainly won\u2019t show up at your house at 8:30 at night.<\/p>\n

Pretty simple point, which doesn\u2019t need any more elaborating.<\/p>\n

Legal Entities<\/h2>\n

What\u2019s not<\/em> a simple point? Whether landlords should use legal entities.<\/p>\n

(This is why the panel includes an asset protection attorney! This stuff gets complicated fast, and I don\u2019t have a law degree.)<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s what I do know: When it comes to asset protection, landlords should either go big or go home.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m serious\u2014half measures won\u2019t help you. They\u2019ll just cost you money and headaches. I know. I\u2019ve spent my landlording career using half measures for asset protection, and looking back, all I\u2019ve done is waste a lot of time and money.<\/p>\n

You may decide that you\u2019re less concerned about the risk of lawsuits than you are about avoiding the headaches and costs of setting up proper asset protection. And that\u2019s fine\u2014in fact, I applaud you for being decisive and making a firm judgment call.<\/p>\n

If you do want to own your properties with more anonymity and with protection against lawsuits, speak with an asset protection attorney. I’m happy to connect you with my friend who I’m appearing with, if you want a referral.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing: When you own your properties in your own name, all of the other measures in this article lose much of their potency. Anyone can go online and look up your property in public records, and there\u2019s your name and mailing address, naked and exposed for all the world to see.<\/p>\n

If you choose to own your property under legal entities, you give your anonymity a fighting chance. Yes, a name will still be on record for who filed the paperwork, and you\u2019ll still need a resident agent. But a good asset protection attorney will structure your assets so that your legal entities are held in a trust, adding layer upon layer of protection.<\/p>\n

Is Asset Protection Bulletproof?<\/h2>\n

No. Of course not. A determined litigator will still find you, if they really want you.<\/p>\n

But by making it difficult to determine who you are, much less what your assets are, much less how they can be collected against, you raise the barrier of entry to sue you.<\/p>\n

In other words, you can deter<\/em> lawsuits before they happen. Those slimy personal injury lawyers, encouraging tenants to file \u201cslip \u2018n fall\u201d cases? They look for easy wins. But the more privacy, anonymity, and legal barriers you\u2019ve put in place, the harder the target you make as a landlord.<\/p>\n

Maintain as much privacy and anonymity as you can. Not everyone needs to know every detail about you. As a landlord who\u2019s been sued and who\u2019s had tenants call me at all hours of the night and show up at my front door, trust me: The less the world knows about your landlord business, the better.<\/p>\n

Whew! Divisive, much? I’m sure there are those of you who agree that privacy has value, and others who think anyone who believes in privacy is some kind of nutcase who lives in a walled compound in Montana with “I shoot first and ask later” signs all around it. <\/em><\/p>\n

But I am curious about your thoughts on landlord privacy, despite the extra dose of personality in this one. What do you do to preserve your privacy and protect your assets?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why do landlords need privacy & asset protection? How do they create it? Here are my reflections on 15 years of landlording with less privacy than I’d like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":158586,"featured_media":79375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landlording"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/158586"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}