Living the death of the Irish property boom | 105 comments (105 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Living the death of the Irish property boom (none / 1)

Something like that, only expanded. There are three main roles in an LLP. Assuming on "outside" investor, then the interest parties would be:

Parents
Children
Renter

At present, the property is the parents'. They could, I suppose, sign the deeds over to the children for 1p or 1 cent or somesuch. There are laws about doing this within a specified period before death, but if parents were to do this when they hit sixty, then I'm supposing the property would be the childrens'. But there may be legal issues around that.

In the LLP model, I assume the property becomes the LLP, then the parents and the children take on specific roles (maybe there needs to be a third person, a solicitor of some kind or just a friend of the family?, who "manages" the LLP. There would be (....fill in the blanks because this is what I'm missing...) and so, when the surviving parent, say, needed or decided to move into sheltered accomodation, a tenant for the property could be found and that tenant would (...fill in more blanks here...) meaning that money for the sheltered accomodation was freed up, no selling of the property was necessary and (....more blanks here related to inheritance tax and other such matters...)

Hence my request for a diary or maybe links to something that would fill in these specific blanks. An real example hopefully, with info. on

a) The necessary legal wherebywhats
b) The various "agreements" between the parties (and associated legal wherebywhats

and I'm already confused!

Thing is, a lot of us will find ourselves in this position either as parents or children, and I'm all for ET developing beyond just 'aving a chat (which I enjoy mucho) and into...well, developing our ideas of "ways forward" into practical action beyond the type type read read. And the LLP-House scenario seems to me to be one of those possibilities.

Growing indoor herbs might be another...

Also, "How to sort out your business so you only have to work six months a year....and can then use your super-duper international rail ticket to travel lazily from place A to B imbibing....other places and other...er....imbibable...er...imbibes....ach...

So, I'm hoping that Chris can help out, even if just to paint a wide picture--just enough for me to see how it might help, eg, me when I am old and doddery (next Tues week, I think.) I would, of course, be happy to pay Chris or A.N. Other-Expert a decent rate for any hours they could put in to help me actually set up such an LLP, but for now I'm still at the "I like the idea but...I don't quite understand it" stage.

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Mon Mar 26th, 2007 at 09:13:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Living the death of the Irish property boom (none / 1)

Assuming no outside investors.

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Mon Mar 26th, 2007 at 09:17:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Living the death of the Irish property boom (4.00 / 2)

Or outside Occupiers....

Simplifies things considerably.

You don't need a "Manager" per se.

But you still have family "Occupiers" and "Investors" plus a "Trustee", where you may bring in someone you trust (even a solicitor - if they would do it) in case people go under buses etc.

Individuals eg Mummy and Daddy, could be Members of all three stakeholder "groups" while other family members may only be Investors (especially when Junior leaves home, or when Mummy and Daddy get divorced).

So who needs a "pre-nup", or even a will?

You can extend this "family corporation" to acquire a property in which Junior lives etc etc

In the LLP ownership and control do not go together as in Companies.

I think it will be particularly interesting to family businesses who always have the problem of passing the family biz down through generations while retaining control.

Or of bringing in competent managers and keeping their interests aligned with those of the family.

Or of letting outsiders invest so that some family members can "cash out" yada yada

An LLP is limited only by one's imagination.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Mon Mar 26th, 2007 at 12:39:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Looks just like (none / 1)

a straight corporate setup with shares etc. LLC just simplifies the paperwork perhaps.

There are plenty of corporations with 2 classes of shares -- some voting, some non voting. Ford Motor is the biggest example I can think of. The Fords only own about 10% of the company, but have a much greater piece of the voting stock.

Not dissing LLCs as much as failing to see the big advantage in re-labeling.

by HiD on Mon Mar 26th, 2007 at 09:49:47 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Looks just like (none / 1)

I really think you are comparing chalk and cheese.

All Ford is doing is splitting ownership between two classes of financial investors. The company is otherwise structurally no different from any other as between the relationship between owners and everyone else aka "costs".

The difference is that the "Capital Partnership" variant of LLC's and LLP's brings the investors and users of investment on the same side.

The "Principal/Agency" problem of "the Corporation" - which requires the whole panoply of Company Law, Sarbox and all the rest - simply does not exist in this model.

If you need any evidence of the attractiveness of such a structure to investors you only need to look at the phenomenal growth in Canadian Income Trusts, which now extend to virtually the entire Canadian capital market.

This occurred despite the tax issues, management issues (an entrepreneurial trust is an oxymoron) and the complexity and costs of trusts (which is why accountants and lawyers love them).

Investors demonstrably like to share the Gross revenues with the management.

Would you rather drink the water before it goes into the bath, or after it comes out of the plug-hole?

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 03:59:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Living the death of the Irish property boom (4.00 / 3)

Hmmm...talking about LLP's are we, rg ?

Well, here's the Sorcerer to help out his Apprentice
;-)

The reason the "Land Partnership" changes the game entirely is that it enables that bundle of rights and obligations we think of as "property" to be bundled and shared around in entirely new ways.

ie an entirely new form of tenure of indefinite duration - an "evergreen lease" - whereby for as long as you rent the Land and the Capital invested in it you pay an agreed "Capital Rental".

It also means that "Real Property" need never be bought and sold again, although "Occupiers" and "Managers" of it, and Investors in it, may change over time.

The key is that the "freehold" is put into "Trust" with a "Custodian" Member of the LLP or LLC - exactly in the same way that massive firms like State Street and Northern Trust act as "custodians" of shares while the "beneficial interest" is traded increasingly furiously on the casino's we call Stock Exchanges.

Having done this it is merely a question of who lives in the property, who invests in it, who manages it and what the relationships are between them.

French Law is interesting in respect of inheritance, and it would be interesting to see how this structure would intersect with it, with the property itself in trust.

This wrapper offers a neat IHT mechanism in that it is possible to transfer "Equity Shares" to one's kids and then to pay a "Capital Rental" to them (if you don't the Revenue will tax you on the benefit) and continue to live there.

But hey, that's no problem if you actually pay them not in cash but in more "Equity Shares".

The problem comes when you want to move. You have to convince the new "Occupier" to take on this radical new mechanism.

Well, when you tell him that all he needs to pay is an agreed "Capital Rental" - that if he pays more he starts buying "Equity Shares" in the property and that the outcome is much cheaper in cash terms - BECAUSE HE DOESN'T HAVE TO REPAY LOAN PRINCIPAL - then who knows, you might even get people interested.

If not, just rent it out conventionally and rent somewhere else. The model interfaces perfectly well with the existing mechanisms.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Mon Mar 26th, 2007 at 11:13:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Living the death of the Irish property boom (none / 1)

I fail to see how this solves the problem of the elderly person with a paltry pension that doesn't pay the bills. Unless the "reverse mortgage" mechanism is replaced by

valuing the property
dividing it up into equity shares, initially all owned by the elderly owner
the "investor" buys equity shares one by one from the pensioner, until the latter dies.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Mar 26th, 2007 at 05:41:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Living the death of the Irish property boom (none / 1)

Correct.

The owner pays his "Capital Rental" not in cash but in more "equity shares".

If you run the spreadsheets the result is much less toxic than the other options: "reversions" (where the investor takes a punt on how long Granny is going to live) and "roll-up" mortgages at 2% over building society base rate, where the interest rolls up and (at today's rates) the mortgage doubles in 10 years.

So in the perfect world a pensioner could go to his pension fund and have it invest in his home.

For the pension fund it's a REIT clone (LLP's being tax transparent), but simpler and without the management conflicts of the REIT's the Treasury came up with.

Each pension fund could have stakes in a "pool" of its pensioners' properties.

For the pensioner it's the most equitable form of equity release there is.

It's a pity the Chancellor made it impracticable for UK pension funds (I won't bore you with the technicalities).

But that leaves the field wide open for overseas funds - particularly petrodollars looking for a GENUINELY Islamic home - unlike most of the hypocritical crap sold as "Islamic" investment at the moment.

There is over £1 trillion in UK property owned by the over-65's free of mortgage, much of it (unlike public housing rapidly being brought up to "Decent Homes" standards)falling into disrepair because the occupants can hardly afford to live, never mind maintain their homes in good repair.

In Newham, I understand maybe 40% of properties fall into this category.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Mon Mar 26th, 2007 at 06:29:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Yoga and Cook-Jutsu (none / 1)

I was pondering the following example.

Suppose you can run a small Yoga studio on the following (average) annual budget:

Revenue: £100k (fees)
Expenses: £85k (£45k teachers' wages, £20 admin costs, £18k space rental, £2k maintenance)
Profit: £15k

Alternatively, you can buy the space for, say, £250k and pay the £18k/yr in mortgage payments.

Is there a non-toxic way to raise the £250?

One could value the business at £750k put it in trust, sell £250k worth of "equity shares" to buy the property, and pay 1/3 of the revenue (the total of "rent" and "profit" above) to the holders of the equity shares.

At the other extreme, one could value the business at £1.39M, put it in trust, keep £210k worth of equity shares for oneself, and sell £250k worth of equity shares to outside investors. This results in paying 18% of the revenue to the external holders of the equity shares, and 15% to oneself.

In the first case, the equity shares have an expected return of 13.3%, and in the second of 7.2%

Am I totally off?

The problem, in any case, is finding people who, collectively, have £250k to spare. The mortgage solution just requires (say) £25k, together with the "bank magic" of (say) 10% "reserve requirement".

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Mar 26th, 2007 at 07:08:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]

couple of real problems (4.00 / 2)

you can't just "value" a business at 750K or 1.4MM. You have to find someone willing to take the other side of such a valuation (ie an investor who agrees that the business is worth that much and buy some % at that valuation). With a profit of only 15K/year and a building worth 250K, I don't think too many investors will be excited to cough up the rest of those large sums as "goodwill". Those ROR calcs are meaningless unless you can find someone who will accept the risk on that basis.
There is no "bank magic". They are taking titular ownership of the building in exchange for 250K of depositor/bank stockholder cash. The money doesn't come out of thin air despite what the anti moneylender crowd say. To create leverage, banks have to borrow too. Perhaps it's a house of cards, but there is no magic.

What makes borrowing 250K to buy a building from its owner toxic? Paying interest? In that case is paying rent to a landlord also toxic? Getting the use of something without buying it or making it yourself costs something.

by HiD on Mon Mar 26th, 2007 at 09:46:47 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Living the death of the Irish property boom | 105 comments (105 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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