Series LLC - Overhead Expenses

[Timo Loescher]

Hi all!

I have been lurking for months and this is the first time I have a question I can't find an answer to! My wife and I bought our first rental property and have been setting up our business and such. Our lawyer set us up with a series LLC (obviously with just the first series now, but more to come - fingers crossed!) and the advice to keep our entities separate in our books. I know there are mixed reviews on one or more bank accounts - our lawyer said one is fine provided the books are squeaky, so we are going with that.

I have been taking a course online on Udemy about bookkeeping and I get the fundamentals, and how we could track the expenses and incomes of the various series using classes in QB. That is all gravy. My question comes in on how/where do I track our overhead and broader expenses. Like the computer, office rent, legal fees for setting up LLC, etc. Those are used for all the series, so how do you "parcel" them to protect against piercing the veil? Do they just roll up to the master? Should there be another "overhead" series?

I'd appreciate your insights all, thanks in advance!

[Michael Plaks]

@Timo Loescher

Congrats on your start!

If you decide to use one bank account, which is a common practice, all expenses are paid out of the same account anyway. On the books, you will have an additional "General" or "Overhead" class for such expenses. 

On taxes, assuming that you file all properties directly on your personal tax return's Schedule E, the overhead expenses are usually spread between the properties.

If you use a separate bank account for each Series, then you would need an additional Series and an additional bank account for the general expenses and have all holding Series essentially "hire" your General Series as the property manager.

An even more sophisticated setup is to create a completely separate non-Series LLC as a management company.

How much any of that affects your legal protection is a question for a lawyer, and I'm not one. Beware that lawyers' opinions on this issue vary widely, from "never a problem" to "it never works" and anything in between.