Any attorney who is been practicing for more than 36 hours has received the inevitable phone call from someone they’ve never met wanting to ask a “quick question.” If you have ever called an attorney and attempted to ask a “quick question,” this article is for you. As a strict matter of policy, I do […]
An LLC Operating Agreement is a legal document that outlines the duties, rights and ownership percentage of the all the members who own the LLC. All of the owners must sign this document. It usually sets forth the financial arrangement of the members, how profits and losses are distributed, who has management rights, and what kind of […]
Did you know that some of that boilerplate language in your lease might cost you thousands of dollars in a lawsuit brought by your tenant? It can happen to you if you are a landlord in the City of Cleveland. The little known Chapter 375 of the Codified Ordinances of Cleveland, Ohio, titled “Landlords and […]
In the law, what you say can become really important years down the line in a way that couldn’t be foreseen. In this article, I’ll discuss why the help that most of my clients seek — asset protection — can sometimes backfire when the plan actually needs to protect their assets. The “Asset Protection Trust” […]
Today, we will discuss one of the most common estate tax avoidance strategy: the A-B trust, the Family Trust, or the credit shelter trust. Thanks to the Taxpayer Relief Act of 2010, many clients won’t require this kind of estate planning anymore, but the A-B Trust still has important and handy uses and should always remain a […]
Thanks to the Taxpayer Relief Act of 2010, the estate tax exemption has been raised to a lofty $5.43 million for 2015, an amount that means that most clients won’t have to worry about the federal estate tax (unless they have a wealthy mindset!) It also fixes a part of the law that previously caused […]
In an earlier post, I discussed the pitfalls of using a one-size-fits-all operating agreement, especially for real estate investing. What about when an LLC has no operating agreement at all? This is a common scenario when someone files the articles of organization with their state’s secretary of state and declares the job well done. Usually, […]
Potential clients often ask me, “why do I need a lawyer if an LLC is so easy to form?” Sure, it doesn’t take much effort to log on to the Secretary of State’s website, but there is much more to LLC formation than just putting your name into a form and paying $125. An LLC […]
The series LLC is a novel limited liability entity that promises to solve many problems of the real estate investor. This article is meant to highlight some of the pros and cons of using a series LLC in your real estate investment. The Pros The traditional asset protection advice that gets repeated all the time […]
Over the few years I’ve been active on the website BiggerPockets, I’ve seen a few commercial printers pushing their top-of-the-line products for direct mail — official-looking envelopes that look like they’re being sent from the government. Here’s one example, from the “Department of Rate Notification Services,” in an official looking “zip envelope.” Here’s another example, […]