Website used for selling led to lawsuit! - Posted by Andy

Real Estate Investing Real Estate Law
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Posted by John Merchant on December 01, 2006 at 11:50:56:

Here’re the facts of life.

If a lawyer or PI, sitting at his PC, is looking to find RE owned by Joe Gotrox, and doesn’t find any, he’s going to lose some interest in ol’ Joe.

This is the Big #1 reason a trust is used, for the sake of getting some quick anonymity, because then a quick online search for JR’s properties isn’t going to nail something in another name.

BUT, if lawyer learns that ol’ Joe did have a/some RE and then transferred it into such a trust after the acciddent/incident occurred, you betcha he’ll go after ol’ Joe and nail him good and grab that RE.

Just ask Dr.Brown in Dallas, a local physician who did exactly that, and then made a sworn statement that no, she did not own any Re !!! Stupid, stupid, stupid…and it cost her some money and maybe some criminal trouble as I remember the court decision and the facts.

So get this straight…merely deeding a property into a trust or LLC isn’t guaranteed to stop any creditor/predator from finding and grabbing that property…and of the 2, the LLC is a better shield than the trust normally.

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Website used for selling led to lawsuit! - Posted by Andy

Posted by Andy on November 30, 2006 at 08:03:42:

I’m facing a lawsuit right now, and I suspect that the properties listed on my website (in three states) were used to determine that I was worth suing. I didn’t think about this beforehand. Gurus say don’t wear your financial statement on your forehead by titling properties in your name so they can be found. But doesn’t listing my properties for sale on my own company (LLC) website–that I use in marketing–also show the world (and opportunistic attorneys) what I own, or at least have an interest in, making it easier for a hungry attorney to choose to sue me based on my apparent portfolio of assets? Seems like it would offset the asset protection you get from titling property in a trust or LLC. Curious if anyone else has run into this.

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Websites Don’t Cause Lawsuits - Posted by Jimmy

Posted by Jimmy on December 01, 2006 at 07:37:55:

Lawsuits just don’t happen, no matter how much paranoia-driven, asset protection propaganda you have read/heard. What were you alleged to have done? or failed to have done? Attorneys do not scan the property tax records looking for wealthy people. It all starts with a Pi**ed off person who thinks he has a case…

I’ve been a plaintiff a few times, a defendant twice, and an attorney since 1985. Frivolous lawsuits are very rare, and get dismissed quickly. and lawsuits come from very predictable places: spouses (divorce), employees (wrongful termination/discrimination), business squabbles, breach of duty cases (partnerships, trusts, etc.), transactional/fraud squabbles (failure to disclose material info, misrepresentation, etc.).

and no matter how hard you try to hide/obscure your assets, a good attorney will unravel your scheme.

With that said, there are effective ways to divest oneself of assets, but these assets cannot be held your your own benefit. So, if you are already a wealthy man, and want to inure your children/grandkids with some wealth, you can do so. But you can’t render yourself insolvent in the process.

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Setting own snares - Posted by John Merchant

Posted by John Merchant on November 30, 2006 at 10:51:47:

DM’s got it right.

For less than $100 I can sit at my PC and learn almost everything about anybody, and if I can, anybody else can too.

Credit, criminal, lawsuits, state or federal licenses, property bought,sold or recorded, taxes paid, liens filed against, corporations or LLCs chartered, news articles or written references anywhere by, about or mentioning the person, etc., etc…all are fair game.

A few years back I was hired to find and sue a CA resident and it took me less than 1 hour to find that person in a CA State pen, and all the details of his crim. conviction, and I spent less than $100.

Depend on everything you ever put in writing anywhere to be used against you.

A lawyer’s favorite cross examination strategy is to find anything and everything written by or about an adverse witness, or even mentioning him/her, and then cross examining the W with that ammo.

When any expert witness or key witness is to be deposed or cross examined, his own articles, books, speeches, web postings, etc. are all found and examined ahead of time to find ammunition for the X Exam.

The morning paper reports that one of every 32 male adults in USA has a criminal record of one kind or another.

This is why EVERY deposition taken by a lawyer always includes the question: “Mr. Witness, have you ever had any criminal trouble?”

The deposing lawyer hopes and prays the witness will choose to lie about this so that lawyer can destroy that W later if the opposing lawyer calls him to the witness stand.

This is exactly why the lawyer preparing his W for a deposition or about to take the witness stand will always tell that W he must tell the truth and nothing else or he’ll be destroyed on X Exam.

As every trial lawyer knows, his clients and W’s don’t always tell him the truth either…so the effective lawyer gets pretty proficient at unearthing it and making the client and W 'fess up now so his past statements, sins and errors can be dealt with upfront BEFORE that client or W takes the stand.

Normally an old criminal conviction cannot be used against a W in court, UNLESS he’s denied it under oath.

A local businessman openly tells everybody that he’s a convicted felon who served time for something he did when young and stupid, and this has earned him lots of respect…who wouldn’t trust such an open and candid person?

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Re: Website / lawsuit - Posted by dealmaker

Posted by dealmaker on November 30, 2006 at 08:32:24:

You don’t mention WHY you’re being sued, actually you said you’re “facing a lawsuit”, does that even mean you are being sued or just being shaken down?

How you title the property doesn’t shield anyone from finding out who ultimately owns it, reasonable detective work can easily work through trust and llc documents.

For someone to actually bring suit, they have to be able to show that there is reasonable cause to do so. I can’t just decide that “Toyota of America has lots of money therefor I’ll sue them”, it doesn’t work that way.

What’s the basis of the suit? Why do you think it’s frivolous?

dealmaker

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Re: Website / lawsuit - Posted by Andy

Posted by Andy on December 01, 2006 at 16:03:13:

It’s a rec parcel, remote raw land. Buyer alleges that I misrepresented property by giving inaccurate GPS coordinates (they were actually done by an experienced forestry professional and have been verified) and that I represented the land as being mostly dry when it’s mostly wet. I only presented it in its best light, based on the evidence I had. I myself bought it sight unseen, and only went there twice, so any misrep. was not deliberate. I never showed the land myself, but told them to go and satisfy themselves that it was worth the price and terms, 7% down, 8.9% interest.

I disclosed 1/4 of it was wet–based on topo maps I have–but buyer claims more like 7/8 of it is wet. Also the Purchase Agreement and notarized Contract for Deed (Land Contract) both have “as is” clauses in them, and the title is clean.

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Re: Website / lawsuit - Posted by Tommy

Posted by Tommy on December 01, 2006 at 04:50:54:

Wouldnt making someone else the trustee protect you from placing liens against you or any of your properties? And then making your company the benificiary?
Then your good to GO!!