LLC's - how much risk is there?

[Jon Klaus]

I was just reading on another thread about the old debate of how many LLC's do you need? Just one? One per property? Somewhere in between? The idea is to segregate silos of liability exposure. That's fine, I don't know that we'll ever see consensus on this.

The debate brings other questions; how much risk is there? My specific questions are: have you ever lost a property(s) due to liability exposure? What were the circumstances? What was the entity and insurance set up? Did you lose other properties in the same entity?

I assume loss of properties and entities are rare, so if you have direct knowledge of such losses happening to other investors, please share their answers.

[Steve Crawford]

No. Have never seen it.

First layer of protection is your insurance. If it is clearly not enough, they can pursue you personally, your fellow shareholders or any other companies you own. I have seen these cases, but they are very difficult to win.

I've seen lenders shoot right through the entities (llc owners) to the guarantors and take the real estate and other assets of the guarantor for default. But those are not general liability cases.