Series LLC or Trust Structure for Massachusetts

[Kevin Hutchens]

Hi Everyone,

My wife and I now own 3 properties (4 doors) across two states (Maine & Mass). We are looking at how to consolidate and structure our business so as we continue to grow we’re protected. It may be too early on to be trying to structure ourself this way, but I feel like if we create our system now each door will be easier to add to it later.

I’ve read about a lot of different strategies including:

- Keep the houses in your name, use an umbrella policy (which we have)

- Series LLC (Delaware)

- Real Estate / Land Trust

My wife and I currently reside in Massachusetts and the fees for businesses aren't cheap (LLC's are somewhere around $500). Other business structures are less expensive but I don't know as much about them and what I'd need to do to keep them up each year.

We have purchased 2 of our houses personally with owner occupy loans and our latest one with an investment property loan. We have one LLC in Maine that we run all our business transactions / leases / it's own business home insurance through for that house and we transferred ownership of the home to the LLC on tax records but the LLC didn't pay for the home and the mortgage is still in our name.

At this point it doesn’t seem like we have the right structure and we’re looking for advice on how to set up a business to contain everything legally that allows us to grow. Any suggestions would be super helpful! Thank you!