All Forum Posts by: Michele G.

Thanks for the advice. The owner & the resident agent of the LLC are the same. I’m not sure why she would deed herself 1% of the property. I have my realtor looking into it.

Julie Marquez In the situations we’ve dealt with here - regardless of whose property the line is on, the cities have made the neighbors work together on a solution. The cities do not allow a property owner to disconnect a neighbor from the sewer line simply because the line is on their property. If the city wasn’t a lot of help to you my guess would be they take the same approach and will make you guys work it out. My big concern is that you have orangeburg. I would get a pipeline inspection done to verify the condition of the line. When orangeburg starts to fail you will only end up with more backups and the more you clean the line the more damage you do to the pipe. It’s a delicate situation. You want to get your neighbor on your side and agree to split the cost. As it is right now he doesn’t have a problem with the existing setup, but your cottage is backing up in the meantime.

I am looking at a triplex that is 99% owned by an LLC. It looks like the owner put the triplex into an LLC and then QC’d 1% ownership back to herself. The public records show a QC deed on file granting “an undivided 1% interest in the property to (the individual owner) for the grantor’s lifetime to do with as grantor pleases.” The owner does not live on the property. The QC deeds I’ve seen before have not been worded like this. Is this normal? Is there anything I need to be cautious of or aware of if I choose to make an offer on the property? What is the purpose of QC’ing 1% interest back to yourself?

Talk to your QI about the requirements. He should be able to give you the rules on what you can/can’t do and how long you need to hold a property, etc. I’m going through a 1031 myself right now & my QI has been a fountain of information. I’m still searching for my replacement before I list my property for sale because I’m worried about that 45 day timeline. Good luck!

We’ve run into this a few times. The trouble is determining whose line it actually is. How do you know that is your line and not your neighbors? Could he claim that you’re on his line? The customers we’ve had in that situation usually have to get the neighbor to agree to split the cost of separating the lines, incur the expense themselves, or leave it as is.

It depends on the size, age, & condition of each as well as the quality of items you want to replace them with. It also depends on when you want or can do the appliance replacements. Will they do it all at once or as each unit turns over? 

I would tell them to create a replacement budget and timeline of anticipated replacements. If many items need to be replaced sooner rather than later then I would plan on having a reserve fund already in place to replace those quickly and then the monthly reserves can replenish the maintenance fund. 

As for mortgage interest: the interest is tax deductible as a business expense in an LLC. The principal part of the mortgage payment is not deductible.

Adrie Moses-bailey I had a washer shut off fail a few weeks ago in one of my condos. It was my responsibility since it was specific to my unit not common plumbing. Since the tenant had left for the weekend he didn’t notice it until he came home. The entire main floor got wet. Luckily it hadn’t reached up to the drywall yet. My point is...make sure you have enough insurance to cover a loss like that. Replacing the flooring & the minor drying needed cost us $5000. Insurance covered all of it except for the deductible. If we had drywall damage the cost would have been much higher. Make sure you know the amount of “walls in” coverage your agent is quoting you so you are properly covered.

John Teachout That’s how I’ve been doing it, but wanted to see how others handled it. We have had long term tenants in place (6-8yrs) so I stopped setting aside vacancy reserves. I do keep some on hand so that I am prepared for a vacancy to give me time to do updates when they eventually leave.

In the above circumstance do you keep accumulating the $70/month after you have the equivalent of one month’s rent or do you distribute the extra $70 to yourself as profit once you have a full month’s rent in reserves?