All Forum Posts by: Sean Morrison

Call your lender and ask. Worst they can do is say it will trigger the due on sales clause. There are ways around it, but a phone call can save a lot of time, money, and effort.

Anyone who tells you something is "bullet proof" is trying to sell you snake oil. Irrevocable trusts can be great asset protection strategies, but the trade-off is you have to give up control and possibly the benefits of the property, depending on the trust type. Trusts are typically better for transferring property than managing it. Definitely talk to an asset protection attorney before treading into that tricky area.

LLCs are the most common for buy-and-holds, though S-Corps can offer a lot of value if you're doing wholesaling or flipping. 

You'll lose your homestead exemption, which could be huge, or next to nothing depending on where you live.

@Eamonn McElroy is right, don't rely on an accountant to discuss legal liability, and don't count on me to give tax or financial advice (by the way, I'm not providing legal advice here, just sharing some common practices). As a general rule, single-member LLCs are the easiest to pierce the corporate veil. It's tougher when there's partners. If your LLC partners with others in a new LLC, you have a two corporate layers of protection, plus whatever insurance you have.

The other thing to keep in mind is that bringing in investors is going to be dipping into securities law. You need to make sure somebody can walk you through that side as well.

As a general rule, you want your real estate holding company to be in the same state as your property. You can have a second holding company in your home state, which owns the other one, but you need to have a presence.

LegalZoom is sufficient for setting up a single-member LLC without any variations. But they provide standard documents for all businesses, whether you are a florist, a manufacturer, or a real estate holding company. That doesn't really address your needs or your unique liabilities. Filing with the state is easy, and you can absolutely do it yourself if you don't need anything special. The real kicker is your operating agreement and how you manage the business going forward. And if you have a partner or want to bring on an investor, you absolutely need some pro help with that part.

LegalZoom is sufficient for setting up a single-member LLC without any variations. But they provide standard documents for all businesses, whether you are a florist, a manufacturer, or a real estate holding company. That doesn't really address your needs or your unique liabilities. Filing with the state is easy, and you can absolutely do it yourself if you don't need anything special. The real kicker is your operating agreement and how you manage the business going forward, as @Kenneth Garrett pointed out. And if you have a partner or want to bring on an investor, you absolutely need some pro help with that part.

That will also be very state specific, especially if you're in a community property state.

Careful with buying and selling too many vehicles. Your state probably requires a dealers license at some point.

If each investor is doing a different deal, then your options are to create a new LLC for each deal with your LLC as one of the members (great idea) or simply have your LLC put together a joint venture agreement with the investment partner. The joint venture process won't give you the same asset protection though.