Managing income on a multi-owner property without LLC

[Kane Albarron]

Hi all, 

I've been reading these forums a lot the past few months, and have sort of gotten to a point where I am lost and need some extra help. 

Some background: I purchased a rental property 6 months ago with my partner and his father. We took out personal loans (in my name) to fix up the property, and we have our first tenants moving in next month. We just set up an LLC at the advice of my accountant so that our profits (and losses) are handled in one place, receive tax benefits, and come tax season, everyone can easily handle their share of income tax based on our (unequal) division of shares in the property (it's not split 3 ways). An added bonus is the asset liability protection, but I realize a good insurance policy is an adequate substitute for that too.

Next step: we were going to transfer the house to the LLC, but quickly learned that there is a transfer tax in Philadelphia (4%), which will cost us thousands and make it a non-option right now.

I have a separate bank account set up for the house which will hold tenant rent payments and deposit, and will also be used to pay for the remodeling loans and the mortgage. So everything is pretty separate from personal finances. 

So now the tenants are moving in soon. Checks are coming in and written to my name, deposited to a personal (but separate) bank account with my name on it, and I am the landlord on the lease. 

What can I do given the circumstance I've described to make sure all of this income does not just look like MY income and mine alone? I want to avoid getting taxed on everything, but don't know what I can do since the LLC idea didn't quite play out as planned. I want to do this the right way, but it's actually very hard to navigate!

Any advice you can provide would be incredibly valuable to me! Thank you in advance! 

[Lance Lvovsky]

I assume you and your Partners purchased the property as tenants in common? You would simply split all income and expenses according to the ownership percentages in the property. Any interest on a loan that is attributable to your investment in the property is also deductible.