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Nicolas Franckenfeld
  • Investor
  • Springfield, MO
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How to 'hide' from your tenants. Need suggestions.

Nicolas Franckenfeld
  • Investor
  • Springfield, MO
Posted Jul 12 2015, 11:07

I, like most of owners with more than a handful of leases, tend to put some sort of separation between the tenants and me.  With most properties, this separation, usually via a management company,  is desired to prevent the all hours calls,  the ability to play good-cop, bad-cop, etc.

I currently do the same thing although about 1/2 of my tenants know I am the real owner.   That is all fine with me.

HOWEVER,

I am acquiring a multi-unit property whereby the tenants are pretty much the worst of the worst.  It is a big cash-flow property today but it can be a gold-mine if I can slowly turn the place around to a better cast of characters.  We're talking a 1.1 to 1 Pit-Bull to lease rate, strong evidence of drug dealings, history of scuffles between residents, threats to the managers, the whole thing.  And these people also try to pursue every legal angle they can to keep the ownership tied up.   (yes I have a lot of liability insurance, yes I know the risks, yes, yes.........)

I have a manager(s) and want to be as passive as I can be in the property.  I see my face-to-face role limited to being the 'company man' who works for the bigger company who owns the place.

How can I hide my name and protect me and my family from anything these goofballs might decide to do? I already have the property in its own LLC. I paid for a registered agent so my name is not the contact for the LLC.

My desire is just to make up a name for the property.  Say, 'XYZ Apartments, a Division of ABC Properties of Alaska'.    Can I do that?  Have essentially a fake name on the letterhead and leases?  (of course the local phone number and address would all be correct). 

And as far as my LLC, should I instead register it in another state and make it a foreign LLC in my own state?

Again, I simply want to keep the true ownership of this place hidden from the tenants.  Any ideas?

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