Our client is a businessman and an investor who lives in Massachusetts. He wanted to buy an investment property rental in Florida. That seems reasonable enough…doesn’t it? OK, so he goes shopping with a realtor in Kissimmee, FL and finds a property he wants to buy with his IRA. Of course, he needs a non-recourse loan if he wants to leverage his money and not pay all cash. Once he found the property, Lending Resources sent a written profile of it to the bank for a pre-approval and got the ‘green light’ to move forward.
In his case, the investor had established an LLC to hold the IRA that would own the property. We obtained the necessary LLC paperwork along with numerous other papers required and pursued our course of action to obtain the loan. About 1 month into the process, we discovered that the name of the LLC, while approved by the state of Massachusetts, where the investor lived, was not valid in Florida, where the property existed. That LLC name was already being used by another entity in Florida. This created several issues and resulted in a time extension of at least an additional month.
The investor and his LLC Manager now had to scurry to change the name on his asset statement with his custodian, Equity Trust; had to change the name on his agreement with Equity Trust; had to open a new bank account at Bank of America which was the original holder of his IRA funds to show where the funds originated from under the correct LLC name; had to change the LLC name on the loan application with the lender; and had to change the name on the purchase contract and get all parties to re-sign. In addition, we had to obtain Certificates of Good Standing for the LLC from both Massachusetts and Florida. This was on top of all the usual requirements of getting the appraisal, title report, property survey (now being required by the bank), etc. Needless to say, this LLC name change plus obtaining the Certificates of Good Standing from both states set us back a good month or more.
Nevertheless, the investor and his LLC Manager didn’t lose their cool. They went about working closely with Lending Resources to meet all the loan requirements and we closed the loan successfully with the title company’s diligent assistance. The sellers were in Europe, the buyer was in Massachusetts, the LLC Manager was in New Hampshire, the subject property is in Florida (as stated), the custodian is in Ohio, and yet, the title company was able to coordinate all signatures and obtain all paperwork back to the bank within 3-4 business days in order for the loan to be funded and closed. Halleluyah!!
Here’s a challenge for you, the IRA investor - refinance the rental property you purchased for all cash through your IRA and withdraw enough funds to make a down payment for the purchase of another IRA investment property. The only issue is that the house you need to refinance in order to get the down payment for the purchase is rundown and not in rentable condition.
To his credit the investor set up an LLC with himself as the managing partner so he was able to sign all papers having to do with these two transactions including the purchase contract, loan application and loan documents. He didn’t have to depend on a 3rd party to do this except the usual signatory required by the trust custodial company. This saved a lot of time when it came to having to close these 2 transactions in 3 days.
The investor hired Lending Resources Group (LRG) to obtain these loans for his IRA investment properties. Fortunately, LRG has a long standing relationship with the lender that was considering these loans. They normally would not allow an IRA refinance to be completed until the renovation was finished and in satisfactory condition to be rented. In this case, LRG negotiated with the lender to allow the refinance to occur in order to enable the investor to obtain the funds in the ‘nick of time’ to meet the deadline for the purchase of the other house.
The investor tried to renovate his IRA owned property as best as possible to the lender’s satisfaction. However, he ran out of time to complete the renovation when it came to being able to comply with the terms of the purchase contract and satisfy the bank simultaneously. LRG empahsized the investor’s efforts and his completion of most of the work requested by the bank to be done. The bank was also very aware of the investor’s deadline for making the purchase. LRG suggested that the bank require the investor to escrow enough funds for completion of the renovation to satisfy them and allow the refinance to be consummated.
The net result was the investor met his deadline to perform on the purchase of the other property, because all the dominoes fell into place with no time to spare. The lender sent the loan documents to the title company in time to be signed, the escrow officer at the title company made this closing a priority above all other transactions and the lender agreed to minimize the amount to be escrowed until the renovations could be completed. LRG coordinated communicatons with the title company and the lender to make sure that this transaction was a top priority and funds were wired on time to fund both loans. The refinance and the purchase were completed on the very last day possible to meet the deadline required by the seller of the subject purchase. Lending Resources Group would like to thank the lender, the Cascade Title Company and the investor for helping make these transactions become a reality.
