I want someone to give me a reason to incorporate. I own low income properties, mobile homes, SFH’s, Apartments.
I do almost all of the work myself. So the property could be in my cat’s landtrust ,and if I wire an outlet wrong and burn the place down, and get sued, i’m personally liable right?? In my state, LLC’s cost 200 bucks year…wouldn’t I be better off buying umbrella policies? Why in the world would I do LLCs???
LLCs can make sense if you plan to invest with a partner, have significant assets outside of RE, or want to transfer wealth to another generation. For the typical investor, they don’t do anything from a liability perspective for the reason you mentioned… The chances of a judgment in excess of your insurance limits is almost nothing. Even then, BK will wipe it out for much less than the cost of an LLC.
Insurance seems like a waste of money, until you need it.
LLC’s and S-Corps are simply commercially important legal entities that shield one from liability beyond the networth of the entity, as long as there is no gross personal negligence and the corporate docs are kept up-to-date.
Is your business important to you? Are there sufficient assets in the business to justify someone taking a legal dispute to the level of a suit in a district court? If so, then it would probably be wise to be incorporated in some manner. C-Corp, S-Corp, LLC. The all make sense to me for their intended use.