Table of Contents
Written by : Mitchell Holley |
Current |
Write a comment |
Write a comment
hello everyone and welcome to another episode of coffee with carl i'm your host carl zellner one of the attorneys here with anderson business advisors and today i want to touch on a question that's been coming up relatively frequently and that is should you put your primary residence in an llc for asset protection so unfortunately there is not a bright line rule or a clear yes or no for this type of scenario so i've got to run you through a few analysis points here on where that may be appropriate because sometimes it may make sense to put your personal residence in a llc sometimes it doesn't so let's talk about a couple of those points one of the points you look at is what is your state's homestead exemption the first place we look for are asset protection or in the state laws that provide us with those types of protection so if i'm looking at texas or florida they have unlimited homestead protection and your homestead protection just as a quick review here is the amount of it protects the amount of equity in your property so if you have a half a million dollar home you have a 300 000 loan against the property and the entire loan still outstanding then you have two hundred thousand dollars in equity that two hundred thousand dollars is protected by your state's homestead exemption if you have an unlimited homestead so pretty nice when the state already protects that piece for you some states though have a very low or limited homestead exemption so in a state with a very low or limited homestead exemption you may consider putting your property in llc because even if the homestead does not apply to a property in an llc you're sort of weighing the risk against what are my protections what are not when we what else we look at when we look at does it make sense to put my home in a homestead or my personal residence in a homestead is normally we do not put personal assets into business entities those tend to be business assets that belong in there so before i consider putting my personal property or my personal residence into that llc you've got to understand you're accepting some risk by doing so that business assets belong in llc's and corporations and limited partnerships things like that so just be aware that you would then be saying well i'm not really respecting the boundaries of an llc because the business purpose here is sort of unclear now of course there's a bunch of arguments you can make that you're holding for appreciation or really that your personal residence is as much as an investment as any of your other properties fine i'm willing to say that's a possibility but it's one of those analysis points i was talking about so that tends to be what i look at from that perspective when we start talking about should your personal residence be in an llc and just a reminder or something to sort of tuck in the corners of what you probably heard if i have a land trust in place where the beneficiaries and llc same sort of analysis same sort of scenario the only thing the land trust is really changing from that perspective is what an outside party can currently see from say a deed filing so where it would show up if you put it directly in an llc would show up as the llc is the owner of the property within a land trust you would see the name of the land trust and the trustee as the owner of that llc but if the underlying beneficiary sitting behind it is still an llc the same analysis still applies doesn't really belong in an asset or a limited liability company that's meant to protect business assets so that's my main concern and like i say opinions differ on this a little bit but i'm not usually excited or super comfortable when i see a personal residence in an llc other attorneys are fine with it i'm just giving you my opinion on this piece the other piece bare to bear mentioning is then what would i suggest for your personal residence i do like the anonymity portion so i would still use the land trust so i'd have a land trust with a nominee trustee to get that anonymity and then i would have the beneficiary be my living trust so i could pass that asset on without my estate having to go through probate so to me that's the more congruent solution that i like like i said but we can weigh the cost and benefit and what's appropriate for you and your entity structure so this isn't a one size fits all scenario and anderson is not a one size fits all firm but i want to take you all through a couple of those analysis points in there the other thing or last thing i'll leave you with is there are some other tools out there however they're very specialized and usually for very expensive properties or people who have basically a lot of funds available that they don't plan on utilizing so we'd be looking at things like different types of trusts in that scenario but just as a fyi there too so that's it that's this episode of coffee with carl i want to thank you all for joining me as always please take it keep taking advantage of all of our free content out there with you know toby's tax tuesday tony talks clint's youtube channel also all the free classes we do take advantage of it we provide free education because we like to have educated clients and we want to be speaking the same language so take advantage of it it's out there it's for free so catch you next time thanks for everyone joining me with coffee with carl you
Thanks for your comment Vicki Mullenbach, have a nice day.
- Mitchell Holley, Staff Member
you put your primary residence in an llc this is sam bryant i'm a business attorney with bryant taylor law and this is a question that gets asked primarily from people who own real estate and then there are investing they have rental properties um especially for our clients if we're creating a real estate llc for them then they inevitably ask at some point well can i also just put my personal or my primary resonance in this llc as well because they like the idea of the asset protection element of the llc and taking assets out of their personal name so that they can kind of separate their personal assets from their llc assets and i i personally don't like doing that i don't know if there are other attorneys that have a different opinion but for me i don't like advising that and it's because the function of an llc is really is to it's the it's the idea that you are formalizing the structure of a business so if you're putting rental properties into an llc then you are now engaged in the business of real estate investing and the income that you're making from those rental properties is revenue for that llc and the expenses that you're incurring from owning those properties are expenses of the llc and by function of going into that type of business you get liability protection for the owners of the llc which would be you or any other business partners you have and the benefit of that is that any assets that you own in your personal name get protected from any liabilities and judgments generally speaking that can be incurred from the llc so by virtue by operating these llc with these rental properties if you are going into court and you happen to lose that lawsuit then any assets that you own any assets that you own in your personal name are generally protected so putting your personal residence into an llc could have adverse consequences because you could end up in a scenario where you're lumping your personal residence into an llc that owns other rental properties or other assets and if that llc end up in a lawsuit and they lose that lawsuit then your home gets considered an asset of the llc and so there is no longer that separation between that personal asset and your loc assets now if you kept them separate so if you kept your personal residence outside of the assets of the llc then in that same scenario your your personal residence generally would not be subjected to um the judgment of a judgment against your llc but those rental properties inside the llc or whatever other assets you put inside the llc will be subjected to any judgments against that llc so that's one reason another reason is because courts don't especially in courts in florida and courts and other states where the llc is a fairly new idea the uh the laws around the llc's that come or that are formed from litigation or the rules that come out of these court cases are not as developed in some states than other states so depending on what state you're in by forming an llc for your rental property or not in for your rental property but an llc for your personal residence you may not even be getting any benefit from it um so for example let's just say that you heated my first example and you just said and you decide all right well i won't put my primary residence in a llc that owns other property i'll just put my primary residence in one loc and then the only asset of that llc will be the personal residence if you end up doing something like that you may not even end up getting any liability protection whatsoever because it could be possible that if you were to ever end up in a lawsuit and you want to have that hello you want to have that personal property protected a court may not even recognize that llc and the reason would be is because you're not forming the loc for a legitimate business purpose you're forming the llc exclusively for liability protection and there's some courts they may not like that so if you're going to be forming an llc it needs to be for a legitimate business purpose and as a result of having that legitimate business purpose you get the benefits of the liability protection you can't get the liability protection without actually having a legitimate business purpose so that's why when it comes to forming llcs and real estate i typically don't advise clients to release i don't advise my clients to put their primary residences in an llc because the reasons why they're doing it is mainly for liability protection so you don't want to be in a position in which you go through is the process of putting your primary residence in an llc and then you don't even end up getting the benefit of that because a court down the road doesn't even recognize either the llc or they still make your personal residence subjected to any type of judgment against an llc or any other type of judgment against you because of the the function of or the reasoning as to why you put the primary resonance in an llc in the first place so just to bring it all home when you have a primary residence and if you're motivated by the liability protection of having an llc uh think twice about putting your primary residence into an llc whether you're whether that llc has other properties or whether you're creating the llc for the purpose of putting your residence in it i don't see a lot of benefit to it and there are a few risks so that just leaves me to believe that it's just generally not something that you'd want to do hope you find that video helpful we have plenty of other videos on the channel that help you grow and protect your business and if you need to speak to a florida business attorney our contact information is in the description below
Thanks kultraum6 your participation is very much appreciated
- Mitchell Holley
About the author
I've studied wildlife management at College of Our Lady of the Elms in Chicopee and I am an expert in physical organic chemistry. I usually feel peaceful. My previous job was government budget analyst I held this position for 11 years, I love talking about auto detailing and board games. Huge fan of Kawhi Leonard I practice high bar and collect first day covers.
Try Not to laugh !
Joke resides here...