Entity Transfer to Avoid Tax Reassessment

[Michael Hooper]

I'm looking to purchase 10 townhomes in Cincinnati. The current owner paid around 275K for the property and is paying 11K/year in taxes. The numbers on the property were looking good until I was told that if I purchased the property for 495K, taxes would go up to about 21K/year. My realtor suggested doing an entity transfer. I'm not sure on all the details, but it involved me spinning up and LLC, the current owner joining the LLC, putting his property into that LLC, then the current owner signing his share of the LLC over to me. I was told if I did it that way, it wouldn't trigger a reassessment and the taxes would stay the same. Has anyone heard of this, is it legit? Do Incur any liability in the 5 minutes I'm partners with the current owner in an LLC?