All Forum Posts by: Jessie Huffey

The home is in Idaho. The lease states that if there is a lease violation, the landlord can evict immediately. Does this change things?

Hi All,

My parents tenants were having financial problems and paid their last months rent late. Then the tenants complained that there was probably toxic mold in the house and asked that it be inspected while they were away from the home over xmas break. The home was inspected and there was one area inside a laundry room wall where a toxic mold was found. At the same time my parents were investigating possible mold, they also discovered a lease violation because the renters were keeping 18 chickens on the property. Can my parents evict due to the lease violation? My parents do also plan to remidiate the mold issue but no longer want to deal with these particular tenants.

It depends. If you are already wasting monthly income paying rent, it might make sense to put that towards a property you can live in and own. If you are not paying rent, I would get rid of the student loans first. If possible, allocate 50% of your income to student loan payback, 10% towards saving for RE investment and remaining 40% for other living expenses.

It has been awhile since I've been on the forums but I am needing some input regarding the best way to structure the purchase of our next investment property which will be in Central Louisiana (we will be touring properties Feb. 9th and 10th and making a decision on which one to go with at that time). So, my original plan was to use our personal HELOC to buy and rehab the property. Under the new tax law, the interest from the HELOC would no longer be tax deductible so I was thinking I could use the funds from the HELOC to make a formal loan (promisory note, ammoritization schedule, etc) from myself to our Construction LLC and then buy the property and rehab it under the name of the LLC, because interest paid for business loans is tax deductible. Are there problems with my plan or a better way to do it?

@Account Closed - I don't really have any input on your other questions but as far as lead tracking software, I have a couple of suggestions from my past life in marketing/project management. I love Salesforce but it can be pricey. Just as effective is a program called "Teamwork PM". There is a free trial and I think it would work great for your purposes.

@Kevin Lefeuvre. Great question to clarify: "My question to everyone considering the LLC as protection, do people realize what protection we are talking about?" Yes, I guess not everyone realizes the only protection is for assets outside of the LLC. This is one of the reasons that I attempt to balance the value of the assets in the LLC with the debt level of the LLC- I think this is a good strategy to minimize litigation. Glad that point was brought up!

So my husband and I currently have an LLC for his construction business which primarily consists of remodels and home renovations. We also have land that we would like to build a couple of spec houses on as investments. I don't know if I should start a separate LLC for the spec houses, do the spec houses as personal investments in our own name or do the spec houses under his construction LLC. Any thoughts and opinions on the best way to structure this would be appreciated. Thanks!

Yes, Vick- you can buy directly under the LLC even if it is newly formed, but it will limit your options in terms of lenders willing to finance. Also, David has some good ideas in regards to protection but the most important thing to keep the protective qualities of the LLC is to keep very good business records, have separate bank accounts, etc for the LLC and do not co-mingle personal and LLC funds- unless the person who wants to sue you is able to "penetrate the veil, ie. prove co-mingling, etc." in almost all cases the amount they can get from litigation is limited to the value of the LLC and your entire estate is off-limits, just make sure everything you do is legal.

Devin- Awesome you are starting so early! Best of Luck! -Jessie

Ideally, you should have bought the properties in the name of the LLC to start with but there are ways to get the properties into the LLC, one of which would be to sell the properties to the LLC (but this would require you obtaining another financing option). I would talk to an RE/ asset protection attorney in your state to hear all of your options. However, if your main motive is protection, you may be able to just obtain an umbrella insurance policy as an alternative. It wont provide 100% protection, but it is the next best option to having the properties in a separate LLC.