Effective ways to pierce the LLC and find the real name of a property owner

Often preferred by real estate investors due to the tax flexibility they offer and lack of overwhelming paperwork, LLCs are also a convenient way to shield the personal assets of its members. As a real estate professional however, the fictitious name listed as owner is of little use to you when looking to invest in a property, or act on behalf of one of your clients that is interested in that particular property. So how should you proceed when you need to get to the owner of the property? What's the easiest way to pierce the LLC in order to uncover the real name of the owner? Here are two reliable sources that can reveal the actual name of the property owner hidden behind an LLC. Department of State Business Entity Database The New York State Department of Corporations website allows individuals to tap into their database and look up entities - be it corporations, limited liability companies, limited partnerships, limited liability partnerships, or other miscellaneous businesses. The on-site form enables you to search for entities of a certain name on file with the Department of State. Once you've identified the owner, you will be able to access all data available on the entity, such as address information or a registered agent for the LLC. However, results may be restricted due to the lack of an intuitive search form, the presence of several LLCs with similar names that may put you on the wrong path, or even the lack of disclosure on behalf of the LLC - that has chosen not to include the name of a registered agent. In these particular cases, move on to our second resource. PropertyShark.com's extensive ownership information A reliable source of ownership information, PropertyShark.com provides a number of methods that can be used to identify the owner even when veiled by an LLC. Collecting ownership data from a number of trustworthy sources - title documents, assessment roll, HPD records, building permits etc. - PropertyShark enables you to perform further research using each ownership source as starting point. After you've found the property you're interested in on PropertyShark.com, open its full property report. There are a number of data points from within the property report that can give away the actual name of the property owner, even if an LLC is listed as the current owner. The owner's address field from the most recent sale deed can actually tell you the name of the company behind the LLC, or that of a representative for the owner. Or you can look at Ownership from Permits, where you will see all permits filed for the property, along with contact details such as phone number and address of either the owner or his representative. Bear in mind that any type of permit must include the name and contact details of someone associated with the actual owner, in case an emergency occurs, so this data tends to be very accurate. Other sources for ownership data are the actual documents linked from the property report (mortgage, deed, permits), HPD registration records, or even the tenant records - that come with both the names & phone numbers of on-site tenants. These two resources stand out as being the easiest ways to unmask the owner behind an LLC. For additional information on how to use PropertyShark data to identify the owner, go to the official website at www.propertyshark.com. Georgiana Mihaila is a marketing writer at PropertyShark, New York, N.Y.