Perhaps the main reason you chose to conduct your business-whether your business is owning your real estate investment or any other business venture-within a limited liability company, corporation or limited partnership is to protect your assets from the double-barreled threat of “inside” and “outside” liabilities. You want to protect your personal assets from liabilities that may arise from (or from “inside” of) your business activities (example: if a tenant sues for breach of a lease, you don’t want that tenant to be able to get to your personal assets). Plus, you want to protect your company-owned assets from personal liabilities that may arise from “outside” the business (example: if you accidentally hit somebody with your car, you don’t want that injured party to be able to get to your company-owned assets). This protection is often referred to as the “corporate shield” (regardless if the business entity is a corporation, limited liability company or limited partnership).
The Achilles heel of any corporate shield, however, is how well it is maintained after it is formed. Time and again, a business owner forms the entity but then fails to maintain it properly, thereby needlessly creating unnecessary, serious risk to the very assets the corporate shield was intended to protect. Indeed, in some instances, clients have been shocked to discover their company has been suspended by the Secretary of State, stripping the company of the legal capacity to sue or defend itself in court.
One of the essential ingredients of any corporate shield maintenance program is to make sure the entity and its records are properly maintained each and every year. Unfortunately, clients often do not have the time, expertise or resources to keep up with their Corporate Records. Or, even if they do, they feel it’s simply not the “highest and best use” of their time to monitor and handle such administrative, yet important, details. They believe it is more profitable to outsource this task.
We deal with the “mundane”, yet vitally important, company maintenance issues day in and day out for our clients. So, to accommodate our clients, we have created the Company Maintenance Program (CMP).
The CMP is an affordable system where we maintain your company records, handle all the necessary filings, draft and forward annual minutes, and provide answers to your related questions (up to 30 minutes) throughout the year on how to protect the company’s corporate shield.
The CMP includes:
- Review of current company status with appropriate state agencies
- Copy and maintain a master file of all corporate documents
- Serve as Registered Agent if necessary
- Make necessary changes to appoint a Registered Agent with the Secretary of State
- Notification when annual meetings are necessary
- Preparation of Director and Shareholder Minutes
- Ensure that annual required state filings are complete
Annual Cost – $150 per company, plus state filing fees.*
Sign Up for the Company Maintenance Program today. To sign up call our CMP Specialist at 415-448-7778 or send an e-mail to Jeff Lerman.
*Multiple state renewal fees may incur additional costs.
