The Oklahoma series LLC is a relatively new way for the more efficient and effective management of assets. You can create one limited liability company and get the benefit of having multiple limited liability companies. Below is a post 1 of 2 explaining the Oklahoma serial LLC and how you might be able to use it.
I. The Legal Reason
Segregating “dangerous” assets and businesses into separate entities away from other assets, especially “safe” assets, is always a good idea from an asset protection point of view. For example, an individual who owns a gas station and a rental home should not own both within the same entity.
In the best case scenario, every distinct business or major business asset should be segregated into a different limited liability entity. Ideally, someone with 25 rental properties would have 25 separate LLCs, one for each property. However, this is not always practical because of administrative costs and government fees that must be paid for each LLC. What can a business owner in this situation do to protect their assets from liabilities unrelated to those assets in a cost-effective way?
II. The Oklahoma Series LLC
A. The Act
The series LLC may provide an answer. The Oklahoma LLC Act (the “Act”) provides for the creation of separate protected “cells” (‘series’) within one limited liability “container” (the series LLC) without the need to create separate entities, thus avoiding the inefficiencies associated with multiple related entities.
The Act provides that the liabilities of a particular series are enforceable only against the assets of that series. The Act also provides that classes or groups of members can be established, having whatever rights the LLC agreement says they have. The combination of these two provisions allows a series to function in many ways as a separate entity for practical purposes. The series LLC concept is similar in function to segregated portfolio companies and protected cell companies designed for the mutual fund and captive insurance industries in a number of offshore and onshore jurisdictions.
The Act allows an LLC agreement to designate series of members, managers or LLC interests that have separate rights and duties with respect to specific LLC property or obligations. So, each series can be tied to specific assets and can also have different members and managers.
Most importantly, the Act provides that debts, liabilities and obligations incurred, contracted for or otherwise existing with respect to a particular series are enforceable against that series only, and not against the assets of the LLC generally or any other series of the LLC.
B. Obtaining Protection
In order to obtain inter-series liability protection, each series must be treated separately and the public must be put on notice of the liability limitation by the inclusion of the series limitations in the LLC’s Articles of Organization filed with the Oklahoma Secretary of State. Records must be kept for each series and the assets of each series must be held and accounted for separately. The separate holding and accounting required may be in the LLC’s records, so long as separate and distinct records are maintained for each series.
Follow Us!