llc ea. property.

Should each property get its owwn llc and should ea. have its own bank account?

the simple answer is no as you will drive yourself crazy with paperwork and extra cost. If you acquire a large amt of properties than perhaps start a 2nd LLC and perhaps group them by business types or geographic region.

My accountant told me to put aprox. 1million dollars worth of property into one llc, but the whole reason for the llc is protection. If someone was to sue one of the properties in the llc, they can also target the rest of the properties in the llc. The reason for the llc entity is so a potential suer cannot touch your personal residence. My rentals are worth so much more than my residence. So how does that work?

If you are sued you WILL be sured personally anyway it really doesn’t matter how your properties are titled. I hear this over an over with people and asset protection courese. It is belived that if a law suite is filed the atty. only cares about owner of title and that simlply isn’t true. I know from experence.

onedeal,

Yes, you will be sued personally as standard practice. In the absence of gross negligence, it will be a realtively easy matter for your attorney to have the court dismiss you personally from the suit leaving your LLC as the sole target.

REjunkie,

I have been advised to limit the total equity in the properties held by the LLC to $250K. Total value of the properties and the number of properties did not matter, just the equity. Once the equity reached $250K, I was told to form a new LLC for the next property.

Marc and I have argued (politely I hope) about this issue.

But I think you probably want to put a property into its own LLC.

As you note, the cost of doing this, and the headache factor, can become significant. So I really wonder whether such an approach makes sense.

Multiple LLCs still leave any equity in the property vulnerable. Equity stripping uses only 2 entities and provides protection to all the equity, including future appreciation if set up properly. The only time I would use multiple LLCs is in a state where there is no annual fee for operating an LLC and even then I would have some kind of equity stripping in place.

The planning can get complex very quickly. UCC liens can be placed on the ownership interest of the entities. The interests can be placed into other entities. Property can be held in a combination of LLCs and trusts. Tax consequenes add another dimension to the analysis.