Rental Property Investor · New York, NY · Member since 2018 · 5 posts · 10 votes
So my wife and I want to make the right call for our real estate attorney. Spoke directly with Royal Legal Solutions and really liked what they had to say. It’s an all inclusive type plan in which RLS would take care of all of our needs. I’m in the process of speaking with other attorneys trying to get a sense if RLS is the right choice. Are there any folks who have moved forward with Scott Smith and his team who wouldn’t mind telling me how you like there services? Anyone who used other attorneys before RLS would be great to in understanding the differences in services that Scott and his team provide above and beyond other RE attorneys. I’m leaning towards RLS but need more comparisons in order to complete my due diligence. BTW we invest in Dallas which is another reason I want a RE attorney in Texas proper.
@Zack Korenstein I recently signed up with Royal Legal Solutions for their "Free LLC" and monthly office plan ($49 a month). Which if you get an LLC with them you are required to either pay a yearly compliance fee ($200) or a monthly office fee which is supposed to include access to their legal and tax advice.
I initially talked to Eduardo (mentioned in another post) who fielded me to Tom where I paid $150 for a consultation I did not need at that point in time (although Tom assured me I could talk to him and redeem the consultation once I was in need of his services). I then started working with Crystal who is awesome and answered all of my questions.
I will say they appear to prefer to work with me via email versus over the phone as I set up an appointment with my assigned customer service agent and she cancelled the appointment. Then I called her and she told me she preferred to receive inquiries via email. So now I'm waiting for her to hopefully get back to me via email. Needless to say I am a little concerned about the communication. I signed up two weeks ago and only learned today that the process for the LLC takes 6-8 weeks. I'm hoping they will be more transparent with me in the future. I doubt I will ever get to work with Scott although I do love his podcast. I can keep you updated on the progress of all this if you'd like.
RLS advocates a lot of estate planning, depending on what type of investments you have, you may need boots on the ground to review leases, evict tenants, review financing etc. He's been around BP for a long time, very helpful poster.
@Zack Korenstein I’m a fan of Series LLCs, which I believe they advocate as well. I’ve read their strategy on avoiding “due on sale” mortgage clauses, but don’t know much else about what they do.
@Zack Korenstein I recently signed up with Royal Legal Solutions for their "Free LLC" and monthly office plan ($49 a month). Which if you get an LLC with them you are required to either pay a yearly compliance fee ($200) or a monthly office fee which is supposed to include access to their legal and tax advice.
I initially talked to Eduardo (mentioned in another post) who fielded me to Tom where I paid $150 for a consultation I did not need at that point in time (although Tom assured me I could talk to him and redeem the consultation once I was in need of his services). I then started working with Crystal who is awesome and answered all of my questions.
I will say they appear to prefer to work with me via email versus over the phone as I set up an appointment with my assigned customer service agent and she cancelled the appointment. Then I called her and she told me she preferred to receive inquiries via email. So now I'm waiting for her to hopefully get back to me via email. Needless to say I am a little concerned about the communication. I signed up two weeks ago and only learned today that the process for the LLC takes 6-8 weeks. I'm hoping they will be more transparent with me in the future. I doubt I will ever get to work with Scott although I do love his podcast. I can keep you updated on the progress of all this if you'd like.
@Madelaine Au wondering if all worked out with Royal Legal Solutions. I am in the same boat, had the consultation and wondering/deciding if going forward with them. the price tag 10,000 scared me. thx-
@Dan Ruiz I worked with them for a short time. I would say if 10k feels like a lot right now, then wait until you feel more comfortable. I don’t currently have any properties and so for me at this moment it wasn’t a good fit.
i want to schedule a call with them for the $150 fee to get the roadmap, but what is the $10,000 price tag mentioned above for?
I too am wondering this. I had an introductory call with Edward (sounds like he's in the Philippines), and at the end he mentioned the $150 consultation would be the next step. I only own one property and am just looking for a RE attorney to help me with the proper entity structure (again, as a one time thing) to protect my assets. Does RLS have a monthly/annual subscription model? I'm less into that. Any feedback welcome.
@Fred Bagares I have not moved forward yet. $150 seems like a steep cost just to find out what the fee structure might be. I tried PM’ing Scott Smith directly you get a better understanding of it but no reply yet.
I feel like I've been lied to when I signed up for their services. I was told that they have an IN-HOUSE CPA who would be more than willing to assist my CPA OR do the taxes themselves.
Question after question I'm being told that my CPA needs to use his "own best judgement" rather than rely on advice from the firm that setup the entities to begin with.
I think all potential clients need to be very mindful that Royal Legal Solutions WILL NOT back you up with your CPA when you go to file your taxes. So far it has been a nightmare for me with no end in sight.
Bait and switch on pricing. I received a $4500 quote for 3 trusts/LLCs for asset protection with no operating entity, the support staff don't seem to know what is going, I get different pricing at different times, if Scott is on vacation, you are done. Lots of different people nobody knows what is going on.
If you do the consultation, you want to be clear on which entities are Operating Entities and which are Holding Entities. And which manager managed vs member managed and what agreements needed between the entities and who provides and maintains. It's a big fuzzy hot mess.
I have no business relationship with @Scott Smith or his company, but I work with some clients who used their services for entity setup. I did not find anything unusual in what they set up that would require me to change what we are doing for taxes.
Can you clarify why are you concerned about coordination between your CPA and RLS? It was not needed for our clients.
which entity claimed the operating deductions and which entity claimed the depreciation?
Is it OK for the operating company to claim depreciation for the properties that are owned by the holding company.
This situation could cause major passive loss issues depending on your situation.
Scott Smith has refused to weigh in on this “difference” and has since referred me to a CPA who is so busy that I won’t be able to speak to him on the phone until May. So essentially zero support for my concern.
I've moved forward recently with RLS as what they offer meets what I was looking for in terms of estate planning and asset protection with series LLC. They are working on setting up my estate plan, traditional LLC, and my series LLC which should take about 6-8 weeks. So time will tell how their services are moving forward.
I initially spoke with Edward, he's basically the guy that will get some information from you and you can ask general questions. The next step was talking to an staff attorney where you can ask more detailed legal questions. This does require a $150 consultation fee, which I think is a reasonable hourly rate for speaking to a lawyer especially if you're serious about finding out if the services they provide are right for you. I learned about most of what they do for free through Scott's blog posts and listening to the BP Podcasts. I was quoted about $6k to $10k depending on what what products/packages that included what I was looking for. My guess is that they'll put together a quote for what you are specifically looking for.
@Zack Korenstein Did you end up going with RLS? If so, how has your experience been? If not, did you go with someone else? How has that been?
@Paul Beets Have you gotten anywhere with the CPA issue?
I've been with @Scott Smith and the team since last year. I've been happy with their prompt service, framework for asset protection and have continued to learn. RLS managed to fastrack project documents last year, ahead of time before the holiday season saving me $$$.
I understand they have their busy days (as we all do), but have been truly responsive and supportive via email or phone. A CPA and lawyer should be part of your team but not necessarily from the same in house group for assurance purposes - @Paul Beets depending on your framework you should leverage the two separately of their industry knowledge, experience and network to grow your endeavors.
I did the consult, signed up, asset protection structured and very satisfied with asset protection framework.
@Eric D. I do have my own CPA that I’m very happy with. My CPA had some very simple questions about how to handle passive losses and RLS refused to weigh in on the situation whatsoever. It isn’t a team if the team members refuse to collaborate. In this case RLS would have nothing to do helping much CPA properly file taxes in their entity structure.
I was told when I signed up that they had an “in-house” CPA that would be happy to answer any questions that my CPA had. That just did not come to pass.
I looked into RLS after first reading a post by Scott Smith a few weeks ago. I own several properties and I have been looking for a provider that can help us with some estate planning and asset protection strategies. I ended up making an appointment for a call and today I received that call from Edward. It really sounds to me as if he is some type of virtual assistant from out of the country. He asked me a few questions about how I discovered RLS and also what type of services I was looking for. I was under the impression that this call would be somewhat informative in nature rather than a call simply to schedule another call with one of "Scott's attorneys".
In any case, we set up the date and time to speak with an attorney at which point he told me that it would be $149 and asked for my credit card information to complete the appointment. This really turned me off... I explained to Edward that I don't believe in paying for services that I have yet to receive. I have dealt with many attorneys over the years and I have never once been asked to pay in advance for a simple consultation. Does anyone else see a problem with being requested to pay for a consultation in advance? After todays call with Edward and reading everyone else's comments I don't think that I will be moving forward with them.
Does anyone else see a problem with being requested to pay for a consultation in advance? After todays call with Edward and reading everyone else's comments I don't think that I will be moving forward with them.
Side comment, not about RLS specifically. Disclosure: my firm charges upfront fees. Many people have a problem with paying upfront, and many don't.
The problem comes from an investor's conditioning to never pay contractors upfront, or they will not finish the job. Professionals like attorneys and CPAs are not contractors however. We do not disappear overnight and do not struggle to pay our subs. We are also not desperate for a buck. And the foundation of a professional relationship is trust anyway. If you don't trust me with your money, we're on the wrong foot already.
This is not to say that there're no sh**ty attorneys/CPAs or that there're no ethical contractors. Just a generalization. Upfront fees for professional services are becoming more and more common though.
@Michael Plaks I agree with what you are saying to an extent; however, my issue was not with trusting them with my money. When I scheduled the initial call after going through their initial process, I was led to believe that I would be speaking with an attorney from their firm. Instead, I received a call from what seemed to be an out of country virtual assistant who provided no additional information and promptly asked for my credit card number to schedule the consultation. This really caught me off guard and I personally felt as if this was a bad way to establish a relationship with a new client. Instead of going with RLS, I decided to seek out a professional in my local market (Miami, FL) and I have not been asked to pay an upfront fee by any of them for the first consultation.
Just curious, do you charge an upfront fee for an initial client consultation? Thanks for your feedback.
We have used RLS for both our real estate as well as our estate planning, and overall it was a very good experience, albeit a fairly expensive one. That said, always remember that all it takes is one serious lawsuit to undo years of hard work without the right legal protections in place. Also, you want to make sure that your estate plan is in place to make your end of life wishes iron clad and easy for your beneficiaries.
The legal structures they set up for me were confusing until they sent me a block diagram showing how everything works at which point it became very clear.
Only thing I wish they had was a "users manual" that explains what to do at each stage of the process; that would have been simpler than all the emails I sent which they happily answered.
Overall it was a very positive experience and the peace of mind it brings is well worth the money.