Through the course of my SS business, I ocassionally bump into someone who owns not only a primary residence about to be foreclosed on, but several other properties to boot.
Property management is definitely not this person’s forte, yet the economy has been dealing a blow to even seasoned investors. Many landlords are facing challenges because of tenants losing jobs and that doesn’t mean they are poor business person, but it does create a lot more turnover!
I prefere using a Title Holding Trust to facilitate keeping nuisance liens encumbering title transfer, yet I’d really like to better understand the case law regarding investment property, bankruptcy and asset protection.
Of course, I could just refer the folks to a bankruptcy attorney but long before then, I’d like to make sure we’ve done what we could to protect assets. I hope to help them reduce stress by trying to get on top of the vicious downward spiral and at least saving a few assets.
Anyone have any recommendations for texts on the study of asset preservation techniques prior to a bk? We’re not trying to hide assets yet if one 2nd mortgage is attached to one property, and it becomes a difficiency judgment, it would be good to plan that other assets could be sheltered from the debt burden of some other property that has run-afoul of profitability.
What I already know on this case, is that each property should have/could have been held by a totally separate entity. That was these folks first mistake – keep title in their personal name and not splitting these up across multiple different LLC’s. A good treatise on the subject?