All Forum Posts by: DongHui Patel

My experience with Anderson Advisors has been nothing short of a nightmare. They are understaffed and overworked. They take your money and they DO NOT PROVIDE THE SERVICE YOU PAID FOR. Then when you complain they drop you as a client. The worst $10,000.00 I ever spent. Toby Mathis is rude and callous. The only thing they did for me was set up an LLC and then they forgot to file it on the tax return. The mistakes they made on my tax return has cost me thousands to fix. Stay away from they thieves.

I have been with Anderson Business since starting my business in 2019. when you join you are assigned a team. Tax coordinator , Account manager and a Advisor. The service is not cheap. I have the platinum package. As far as structure implementation they are very good. Turn around time on creating LLC'S are good. I use there tax team for my personal and business taxes. They can also do your bookkeeping. Anything you need for asset protection they are top notch. They have lawyers to review document if needed.

The negative I have is that they are now too big. The business has grown in volume and the respond time is poor. Sometimes it can be a few days before you get an reply back whether its email or phone call. If you need a lawyer's advice it usually takes 7-10 days unless you pay for expedited service which is $250-up depending. Mainly because your assign team also has other clients and overwhelmed. I'm looking to leave for these reasons. I have missed out on opportunities because it has taken them to long to respond. 

I just signed with them. Here's why:

Reason 1: anonymity. After moving my office home my name is attached to too many properties and easily findable. I manage 8 companies now all with significant public exposure. Better safe than sorry. This move will likely prevent a lawsuit, however unlikely, from happening due to unobtainable info.

Reason 2: I am reducing my administrative responsibilities as much as possible. Having them keep filings up to date is small but one less thing for my "to do" list. I'm trying to keep the "passive part" of investing alive and well. Rather than hire an assistant, I'm outsourcing and they are part of that picture.

Reason3: I'm vigilant about tax maneuvers, prom notes, and how S Corps, C corps and LLC's can interact for significant tax savings. Everyone may not be at that level, but things get complicated and to get on the phone and ask simple legal questions will be helpful, and what the tax ramification is. I had an incident last month in which I think I would already have saved money.

I've just begun with Anderson so I can't attest to value, but happy to report down the road as I'm deeper into this relationship.

Greetings.  Apologies in advance for the long post/rant but looking for some feedback regarding my experience with Anderson.

I had a call with ABA a few months ago. The phone call was very "sell-me-now"-ish, which is fine I was already expecting that. On the call I told the advisor what I wanted (WY LLC and 2nd LLC in the state I intended to buy RE). Although he kept pitching the Platinum Pkg for $11k I said no, just want the 2 LLC's which he gave me an estimate of about $5k. The call ended with him agreeing to email me a breakdown of my package and what exactly I was getting for my money. He also advised me to feel free to email any questions I had forgotten to ask on the call. All seemed well.

Well, I never got that email from him. I did get several emails and phone calls from 2 different assistants asking how was the call and if I wanted to schedule a follow-up consultation. Nope, just waiting on that email I was promised so that I can give you my business... but hey. When I sent a follow up email for the price breakdown, and with a tax question I had, he responded with "recap, we spoke about price and I said about $5k". Several weeks later I received a call from him directly, asking "hey just following up to see if you're still interested in setting up those LLC's"... My response, "Yup, still waiting on the reply email from you with price breakdown and the answer to my tax question". He stated he'll pull up the email and get right back to me. That was 1 month ago. Still nothing.

So here's my question(s), would it be wrong of me to call ABA and request a different advisor, or is this advisor's etiquette indicative of the entire company?  Is this to be expected since I'm not buying their $11k Platinum Pkg?  Are these guys the only game in town and can compile the same structure?

Any feedback would be appreciative.  Thanks.

@Wilco Ravestijn How has been your experience so far with Anderson (since your replied 3 months ago)? I have a question on Anderson's tax services. Do they have a CPA service in house that will do your taxes with the Platinum package or is it mainly an advisory service with consultations as needed. If no CPA service, what if their advice conflicts with your current CPA? Would they be able to recommend a firm more aligned with their services?

@Patricia Smith - I spent numerous hours researching from multiple sources the whole LLC question and asset protection matter and all the rabbit holes it opens. I gathered all my notes in a 50+ pages document touching on formation and maintenance of LLC and business structures, transferring assets, protection strategies, trusts, anonymity, insurance, levels of protection, etc. including when you should do it, how many properties per LLC, due on sale clause, selecting an attorney, fees, checklists and resource materials.

There is no absolute answer and unique tool/strategy in anything real estate. You need to learn how to use all the tools available to you (financing, insurance, management, etc.) and to understand how they fit together in your toolbox, as none will give you everything (e.g, insurance is required and it will cover you for many situations, but not always; asset protection (LLC) is litigation insurance and complements regular insurance, by minimizing the target and making it unappealing).

If you are a new investor, probably you will not have a lot of assets and/or equity to worry about (but even that is relative and subjective to each person tolerance to risk) so I would not worry about that till you pass that risk threshold (in my opinion 100K+ in equity, maybe 50K if you are really risk adverse) and you should be primarily concerned with finding good deals and growing your business first. Regardless, you need to implement insurance and proper management procedures, regardless of how many assets and equity you have. So, learn about that first - and a good point to start is a Nolo book (https://www.amazon.com/Every-Landlords-Property-Protection-Guide/dp/1413307000/) mentioned in the doc, it will explain about insurance, how to evaluate insurance, and then about property management, property code, proper leasing and all the way to LLC and hiring.

My notes file are primarily on asset protection, and primarily for buy&hold, but they touch on many other rabbit holes that opens from that (insurance, property management, DOS, transfers, etc.). It should save you many hours of research and hopefully clarify a lot of concepts (or at least I hope it does :>) as to why you want it and when and how. Let me know if you are interested, and I can send them to you - just send a colleague request (to exchange files need to be colleagues) or your email. 

@Matthew McNeil - you made one possible mistake - you quitclaimed the deed to the property - operation that usually doesn't carry the title insurance. It is the cheapest of the options for transferring the property, but there is a reason for that.