All Forum Posts by: Ken Weiner

I suppose that's true. I'd still find it valuable to hear a story from someone that got sued and lost and wished they had more protection.

There are so many discussions on here about the most appropriate asset protection strategies for various situations. Umbrella policies, LLCs, holding LLCs, land trusts, etc. People debate whether someone else can simply "pierce the veil" of these entities.

I was wondering if anyone out there that has actually been sued. If so:

• What were you sued for and for how much?
• What asset protection structure did you have, if any? Insurance? LLC? Other?
• What was the result?

I'd love to hear first-hand experiences of people whose asset protection strategy has actually been tested. I'm sure many others on here would benefit as well. Let's devote this thread to actual first-hand experiences instead of asset protection advice of which there is already plenty of on BiggerPockets.

I use Wave as well, creating a separate "business" for each property.  I linked each business to a separate checking account.  Then I have one credit card for all my properties.  This credit card is not linked to Wave at all.  Then, when I make a charge on the card, I follow that with a payment from the appropriate checking account to the credit card balance.  If my charge applies to all the properties or a subset of the properties, I make a partial payment from each checking account it applies to.  For example, if I paid $100 for a PO Box used for 2 properties, I could make a $50 payment from each of 2 checking accounts toward the credit card balance.  This works for me because, in practice, I don't have that many charges to my credit card.  This approach probably sounds tedious, but it has worked for me so far up to 5 properties.

Has anyone renamed an LLC?

I have a California LLC that holds title to my rental properties. The name of my LLC bothers me because it includes the street address of my first property. I was originally going to put every new property into a new LLC, but have since changed my mind. I am thinking about renaming the LLC now, but I have a feeling it is going to be a painful process since I have multiple bank accounts associated with the LLC at Bank of America and they told me I would have to close all the existing accounts and get new ones. I think I'll also need to update W9's with property managers, automatic deposits and payments, my insurance companies, etc.

I did already create a DBA for the business, so I'm aware of that option, but still, I'd ultimately like to just rename the LLC since I don't want it's name to show up anywhere.

I'd love to hear about your experience if you've gone through this process before.

I also recommend saving yourself the money by using Wave Accounting.  Instead of using the memo to differentiate properties, I just make each property a new "business" in Wave. That also makes it easy to link a separate bank account to each "business" if that's how you do things.  The only drawback is that Wave doesn't give you and consolidated reporting across businesses, if that's important to you.  I have been using Wave for several years and I'm up to 5 properties now.

@Donald Brinkley Did you go through with renaming your LLC? I'm in the same position, and I created a DBA, but the LLC name just bothers me since it's name includes the street address of my first property. I am thinking about renaming the LLC now, but I have a feeling it is going to be a painful process since I have multiple bank accounts associated with the LLC at Bank of America and they told me I would have to close all the existing accounts and get new ones. I think I'll also need to update W9's with property managers, automatic deposits and payments, my insurance companies, etc. What was your experience like?

I have been using Wave Accounting for several years and I have 4 rental properties in it, each setup as its own business.  It works well for me. You may want to review this thread where more about Wave has been discussed already.

@Jason Turo Yes, I would choose Wave for my properties if I had to choose again. Wave doesn't require you to use multiple bank accounts for multiple properties.  That's just the way I chose to set it up.  You can easily move transactions from a single account to any Business setup in Wave with one click.  You just have to choose a default Business where the transactions will show up when Wave syncs with your bank.

The system does produce financial statements such as a Balance Sheet and Income Statement.  You will find them in the Reports section.  Other reports include General Ledger, Expenses by Vendor, and Income by Customer.

I have been using Wave Accounting for several properties. I create one "Business" for each property. I also have a separate bank account for each property, so each Business syncs with one bank account. I don't do anything to represent different units within a property other than using the Description and Notes fields.  In general, it works well for me, but here are the things I don't like:

- Page loads feel a little slow

- No mobile app or mobile-optimized web site available

- Unable to build customized reports and graphs

- Unable to aggregate data across Businesses (Properties)

- Doesn't feel like Wave makes that many improvements. The UI rarely changes.

- No template for real estate property owners for creating Chart of Accounts