Minimum Cost Restructuring with Real Estate Provides Asset Protection and Flexibility

There is an inherent risk of liability that goes along with property ownership. You as a property owner could potentially be subject to tort claims stemming from activities that occur on the land. If the property were held in your individual name or in the name of your Revocable Trust at the time a tort claim was made and the claim resulted in a judgment against you or your trust, your personal assets, or the assets of your Revocable Trust, could be attached to satisfy the judgment. However, if the property is held in a separate LLC, only the property held in the LLC can be used to satisfy the judgment. This restructuring is advantageous to you because it would give you maximum protection for your personal assets.

This structure maximizes the asset protection for Corporations as well, because any judgment against one piece of real estate could only be satisfied by that piece of real estate and not the assets of corporation or the other pieces of real estate since they are in separate LLC’s.

Having each piece of real property in a separate LLC has advantages from a business standpoint in that it makes it simpler to bring in a developer as an owner of the real estate. Bringing in a developer as an owner when the real estate is held by an S corporation is difficult because an S corporation can only be owned by certain individuals and trusts, whereas most developers will be some form of business entity. However, any business entity can be a member in an LLC, and by having each piece of real estate in a separate LLC, you can bring in a developer as a member for just the one piece of property. Also, if you do bring a developer in on a joint venture, by the real estate being in an LLC, you have the flexibility to provide different allocations of distributions and taxes between you and the joint venture partner. This flexibility would not be available if the real estate was held in an S Corporation. Finally, when you decide to sell the real property you can sell the entity rather than selling the actual real property.

Each piece of real property in a separate LLC has advantages from an Estate Planning standpoint in that it makes it simple to transfer ownership. The ownership of real estate held by an LLC is represented proportionately by a member's shares of an LLC. Rather than filing a new deed, members can transfer ownership of the property to their children by simply issuing them membership interest in the LLC. This makes gifting away interest in the real estate very simple to do. Also, it is easier to gift interest in an LLC than it is to gift away stock in an S Corporation, because an LLC has no restrictions on who can be an interest holder whereas there are limits who can be a holder of stock in an S Corporation. Therefore, each gift of stock out of the S Corporation would have to be analyzed to ensure it was going to an eligible S Corporation shareholder.

For Real Property currently held in your individual name or in your Revocable Trust, we suggest creating a single member limited liability company (LLC) for each parcel of real estate you currently hold. A LLC holding company should be created to be the single member of each of the LLC’s holding the real estate. You or your trust would be the sole member of the LLC holding company. You would still maintain control of each LLC holding the real estate because the holding company is the sole member of each LLC and you would be the manager of the holding company.

For Real Property currently being held in the name of a Corporation, we recommend creating a single member LLC for each piece of real estate and then having the Corporation contribute the real estate to the individual LLC in exchange for ownership interest in the LLC.

Any real estate that you acquire in the future should be held in a separate LLC with the LLC holding company as its sole member. Because of the business and estate planning advantages a LLC has over a S corporation, it is best to never acquire any real estate in a S corporation.