Expert: Steve Schiffer - 11/2/2009

Question
I own about 6 parcels of vacant land and a sigle family redisential rental property, all in Lee County (mostly Cape Coral). All properties are in my name and none have any liens or mortgages. I am in the processing of setting up a Florida LLC (I live in New York) and want to transfer title to most or all of these properties to the LLC. I will be the managing member of the LLC.

What is involved and what are the approximates costs involved in doing this? Do doc stamp taxes apply? Is the current value of each property relevant or can I use a nomimal value such as $10 or $100? Can all of this be accomplished with one transaction, or does each propoerty need to be transferred separately?

Many thanks.

Answer
Fred,

You should be able to "quitclaim" deed them all to the Florida LLC and do it for $100 each.  As far as doing it in bulk...I doubt it. You might have to do each property separately.  

You can contact the clerk of the court in Lee County to get the paperwork but keep in mind they will, typically, not give you any advice due to the legal nature of the transaction. You could also contact a real estate title company in Lee County and ask them to take care of it all for you.  If you take this route you will certainly pay more for their fees but it might be worth it to make sure you are doing it properly.

I hope that helps.

Regards,
Steve Schiffer

www.OrlHomes.com