All Forum Posts by: Andrea Jones

@Andrea Jones 

 First you have to decide how active you are going to be in the property. If you are going to be active, then a lot of what @Steve Vaughan says will work well. I really hope @Bill Gulley was kidding.

• If you are involved in the property, you can be named in a lawsuit. For example. a lawsuit happy, money grabber, slips on ice on the sidewalk. The hire a bloodsucking ambulance chasing attorney.  They will sue the person who shoveled the walk, the company that hired them, the property manager, and the registered property owner.

The more anonymous you want to be the more it will cost.

If I wanted to maximize my anonymity, I would take these steps. 

1. 1. My attorney sets up the LLC, and is the registered agent.
2. 2. My attorney signs all closing docs for the Property. Properties are titled in a Land Trust and the LLC is the Beneficiary. Use your business address, or the Registered Agent's address.
3. 3. My attorney hires the Property Manager I want, and signs the management contract on behalf of the LLC. The attorney directs the Property Manager to follow my instructions for activities involving the property.
4. 4. The Property Manager distributes funds directly to the LLC bank account.
5. 5. Maintain really good insurance on the property.

Obviously you'll incur some Attorney fees, but it gets it done. Steps 1, 2, and 5 are probably sufficient, 3 and 4 are for the really paranoid. Unless they really are out to get you.

And if you lose, go find Bill's drunks, and buy his houses from them.

Are you buying cash or have the houses with a mortgage, if you havea mortgage be careful as you can void it if you put it in the LLC's name

@Andrea Jones  the Ohio Revised Code for LLCs is here, http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/1705

If you really don't want to manage and don't want people to know your membership, then have an attorney create the LLC and get a registered agent. This will keep most people from knowing who runs the LLC, but if your LLC (or your property manager) gets in hot water, the agent (or authorities) will be there to come and get you.

Similarly, I am beneficiary of a trust where literally no one knows who 'runs' the trust. But if something goes bad with the trust owned assets (beyond what a PM or their local legal support can handle), a subpoena and/or court/legal documents will find me. I know because I had it happen.

@Andrea Jones I guess it would depend on what official documents you are referring to. I advertise it as my business address. For real estate commission purposes, they have my UPS address as my mailing address, but also have my home address as my principle place of business. When I incorporated my LLC, I used a registered agent with a different address, and marked that I did not have a principle place of business (I didn't at the time).

Only one of my tenants knows where I live - it was a special circumstance and I live 5 hours away.  Otherwise they only get my UPS mailbox address. 

Oh, absolutely, your best avenue is to get with some homeless person or someone who has absolutely nothing. Hire them, pay them a couple hundred buck. Title property in their name and have them execute a quit claim deeds back to you, which you don't file, but keep in your lock box. Then have them hire you to manage the property. If they have had enough wine, there should be no reason to go into details. You manage and keep the money except for the annual $200 you pay them as your straw man.

You'll never get sued, the bum will and he probably won't show up. Did I mention the fake liens you file against the property?

Well, you can play all kinds of games, or, you can provide great management and just never be negligent, then have tons of insurance and sleep well. Either way, you're pretty safe at safeguarding your 50 million dollar estate. :)

@Andrea Jones Depending on your location you can rent UPS mailbox for about $100-$150 a year.  It provides you with a street address and a mechanism for receiving packages, rent or keys from your tenants without the need for an office.