Collecting Rent on LLC Name or not

[Lakshay G.]

Hello there, I am new to buy and hold investing and closing my first property very soon. The house is on my name (not on LLC). My concern is that I don't want a tenant to know my full name and my details that I actually own the house, I would like to act as a property manager instead. Yes I'll be using a P O Box address where they will send a payment (I'll be lucky if they can pay online). In other words, I don't want to use my name on the lease, I'd rather form a LLC and use the LLC name instead of mine. Maryland is not the cheapest when it comes to LLC fees. Is this my fear due to being new. So coming to two questions now. Should I create a LLC that a tenant will write checks to and will that really do anything? Second, if the tenant asks me if I own the house, can I say it's owned by a person who doesn't choose to disclose but the LLC is managing it? Or should I suck it up, mention since day 1 that I am the landlord and not care what they think.

Thank you in advance. 

[Tom Gimer]

@Lakshay G. In MD you as an individual can register a DBA... it's called a Tradename and it can be created with a simple form + payment. You'll need to renew it every 5 years.

As others have said, since the real property is owned by you personally, and that information is public record, your tenants will be able to figure out easily who owns the property they are living in. They can also go and search tradenames on SDAT and figure out who owns the DBA they are paying rent to.

Low bar but some anonymity. Zero liability protection.