Can a 1031 buyer acquire the sellers LLC??

[Joel Owens]

Have a situation now where a retail center is assessed at a low value but has been full for awhile.

The state the property is in might reassess the value based on the higher recorded purchase price.When this happens it could substantially raise the CAM tenants pay with increased taxes. The center is in the mid millions for price. Current tax assessment is much,much lower.

The listing broker has one idea of the buyer purchasing the existing LLC of the owners so that a new sale is not recorded. This keeps the tax assessor from seeing a new sale at a higher value. Says they have done this in the past with other properties.

The key is if you can structure a 1031 exchange this way where the buyer purchases the existing entity who already owns the property.