All Forum Posts by: Matthew Hicks

Does anyone know of any lenders that will lend on residential development projects (SF) in the Caribbean?  specifically the Bahamas?

no one?

Hi, 

I am looking at a number of projects that have grant money available for them for historic reasons.  I know that the entity that we create must be a pass through S-corp rather than an LLC in order for the grants to not be treated as taxable income.  

With that being the case, does that impact the taxable basis for my property once it's put into use?  

Consider the following example:

Purchase Price - $100,000

Grant Money for rehab - $50,000

Other Capital for Rehab - $250,000.  

Is the taxable basis for the property $400,000 or $350,000 because we paid no taxes on the money for the grant?

Thanks.  That's what I've been leaning towards doing, but I will at least tell the client to get some bonus points in the event something else comes. up.  

right, I ha e to go back and check my communications to them.  I'm not sure I made that as clear as I should have (first custom build our.)

Hi Everyone,

We have a buyer for a home we are re-developing in a historic area.  The buyer wanted to put a roof top deck onto the house.  We provided them with a quote with a fair amount of cushion on from our estimated cost due to uncertainties surrounding constructing a deck on the top of a sloped roof (the deck will be accessed from the third floor out to the roof of he 2nd floor as the back half of the house is only 2 floors).  

We learned after the fact that we had to go to historic review commission to get the deck approved (despite it not facing the street or being visible from the street).  In any case, it now looks like the deck is going to have to be built into the roof itself, increasing our costs rather substantially.

So is there an industry standard of sorts to consider when discussing this with our buyers?  Should I be eating the additional cost, or would this be considered an unforseen issue that I can/should charge them for?  

Thanks!

Thanks.  I am trying to find one now.  what a stressful experience.  

1. Engagement letter - yes. 

2. SOW - Yes

3. There are reams of emails of us communicating to him via email about missed deadlines, etc... nothing was explicitly agreed to or signed in contract form.  

@Mindy Jensen - he is not local to me (i live in the Bahamas).  I found him online on this blog.  

Hi everyone,

We hired an accountant at the end of 2014 to do our books, business taxes, and personal taxes.  Our personal taxes have been done for some time and luckily we are owed money.  however our book keeping has still not been completed (we've not yet started 2015 though we do keep good excel records), and our accountant is almost impossible to reach.  he misses meetings >80% of the time and so much time lapses between one phone meeting and the next that we spend most of the time rehashing prior conversations.  This rehashing also makes it clear that he had done no work between calls.  

We are approaching the october deadline for 2014 tax filing and this is started to get extremely concerning.   What legal recourse do i have?  Any suggestions for how to handle this situation.  Without naming the accountant, I can say that I found him on these forums.  The issue isn't competence, it's either being over-worked, overly-distracted, or something else.  We appreciate that personal issues can cause delays in business so we've tried to be as patient and understanding as humanly possible since these delays started back in March. Now we are starting to approach a real deadline and I'm extremely concerned.  

Any advice is appreciated.  

Thanks.  If any of their selections are something that I wouldn't put into a home, I'm going to insist on 100%.  Otherwise, It's up for negotiation.  So maybe I should say that upgrades are generally 100% but up for negotiation.  

What about the initial deposit of 5% with $10k non-refundable.  Is that relatively normal?