Church w/ unused parsonage in Bath, MI. May need creative solution.

[Matt Gehrls]

I won't go into too much detail because the details are not in stone yet and I have no numbers to use. I figured innovative strategies made sense as a place to post. If there is a better forum feel free to suggest.

A church is getting a new minister that already has housing in the area. Meaning this church has a parsonage that will go unused. It still has financing to deal with. They don't want to sell incase the minister to follow their new minister needs housing. They don't want to manage the property as a rental for obvious reasons. And they can't make profit on the building because it is not taxed as they are a religious organization (from what they, and I understand we could be wrong). My latest thought that I haven't ruled out for one reason or another is putting it under property management and the management fee would be any profit made after expenses were paid. This way the church retains title and isn't gaining profit. The only one benefiting financially is the property manager for dealing with the headache of helping this church retain title on something it can't afford without the help.

Any advice or ideas would be helpful. I'm not emotionally invested but my mother is involved and could use some guidance. She wants to sell but she only has one vote on the board.

[Linda Weygant]

The church is not prohibited from making a profit, they will just have to pay tax on it.  Look up the concept of Unrelated Business Income Tax and read through this information:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1828.pdf

If the church isn't already filing a form 990, it will need to do so.  I think it's possibly the church could do a lot of good with the profits after paying a property manager, the tax and maybe a tax preparer.

Just because they aren't used to this type of activity does not mean that they shouldn't consider it.