SHE WAS MAD AS HELL, AND CAME LOOKING FOR THE OWNER RANDY HUGHES
The trouble making tenant asked why we would not renew and we told her,“ because the owner told us not to renew.” She got mad, but realized that we were merely the property management company and we were just taking orders from the owner. She went on to ask who the owner was and we said we could not tell her that per our contract with the owner.
Three days later I received a phone call from my attorney’ s secretary. She said there was a woman in their reception area demanding to speak to my attorney about her lease. The irate tenant had looked up the“ owner” of her condo online and found my attorney’ s name. Then, she looked up my attorney’ s office address in the phone book and marched down to his office to confront him.
Hopefully by now you are beginning to understand the benefit of NOT owning real estate in your name personally.
Let me back up here and explain something I do to add another layer of asset protection. Sometimes when I initially purchase a property I make my attorney the trustee, for one day. This technique puts the title of record in my attorney’ s name, but I immediately fire my attorney as Trustee and hire an outofstate Trustee. This way the public record shows my attorney as the“ owner” even though he is not.
I told my attorney’ s secretary to tell the tenant to leave the premises and if she did not do so voluntarily, call the police!
This real life story exemplifies the hazards of owning rental real estate. There can be life and death safety issues associated with the landlordtenant relationship. Some tenants can get violent when it comes to their housing and you need to protect yourself and your family from the dangers. Just imagine if you are evicting a tenant and they can find your address in the phone book or online and they show up at your house with your tenyearold daughter answering the door.
Asset protection begins with being more private in all aspects of your life( personal and business). The cheapest form of privacy for us as real estate investors is to NOT OWN PROPERTY IN OUR NAMES. This is why it is so important that you title each piece of real estate in its own Land Trust( so each parcel is insulated from the others) with the Trustee as owner... not you!