When you operate a business, you must consider what happens if your business is sued directly. Will your business liability insurance policy protect your business assets, will the plaintiff attempt to pierce the LLC veil and go after your personal assets? Most don’t consider the big question: What happens when you are sued personally for something non-related to your operating business? Will you lose control of your personal assets, including the ownership in your LLC?
The LLC has this built-in “charging order” protection, making it more challenging to take over the LLC’s ownership and control its assets.
What is a “charging order,” and why is it important?
A charging order is an order which places a lien on your membership interest in the LLC. It is a request to the manager of the LLC to pay the creditor all of the profits and income that would have otherwise gone to you. It is usually limited to the dollar amount of the judgment and is similar to a garnishment of wages or income.
In about two-thirds of the states, the charging order is the exclusive (only) legal remedy personal creditors of LLC members have. However, in most states, creditors with a charging order only obtain the owner-debtor’s financial rights and cannot participate in the management of the LLC. Thus, the creditor cannot order the LLC to make a distribution subject to its charging order.
What do the courts look at when you add a partner, and what will the courts look to decide if the “charging order” should hold up for LLCs? There is a difference between a passive investment partner to make a two-member LLC vs. a partner who has a say in management. If you add a partner that is only passive as a member (assuming an LLC that is managed by managers), and that partner is 2% and has no say in the management or voting rights, if a creditor takes that partner’s interest, that will NOT interfere with the operations of the LLC.
Ultimately, the judge may allow the creditor to levy against the 2% partner’s interest and sell it off. At the end of the day, if there were no adverse impact on the non-debtor member, the charging order would likely not protect that member’s interest.
Notable cases involving the single-member LLC and the charging order:
- Colorado In re Albright, 291 B.R. 538 (Bankr. D. Colo. 2003). A 2003 Colorado bankruptcy case, In re Ashley Albright, allowed a bankruptcy trustee to take control of a one-member LLC.
- Florida is based on a 2010 case. In Florida, the Supreme Court held that a judgment creditor with a charging order against a single-member LLC might take full membership rights in the LLC in single-member LLCs. Not long after the Florida Supreme Court’s decision, however, the Florida legislature amended the applicable law to limit the rights of a judgment creditor to a charging order or foreclosure. Sec. 608.433, Fla. Stat.
- Lousiana in a case in 2020. First, The District Court held that the Louisiana charging order statute did not apply in the context of a single-member LLC owned by the debtor since there is no non-debtor member with interests to protect from the creditor. On appeal, the Louisiana Court of Appeals reversed, essentially saying that Louisiana charging order statute limits the rights of a judgment creditor to “only the rights of an assignee of the membership interest,” i.e., what is known as an “involuntary assignee.” Because there has been no reverse piercing of the veil in this matter, we find that a plain reading of Louisiana’s charging provision for LLCs provides the exclusive remedy of a judgment creditor.
Bankruptcy courts are more open to allowing creditors or trustees to exercise control over debtor membership interests. Bankruptcy courts look to Section 541 of the Bankruptcy Code and applicable state LLC Law on this question.
Some states say the single-member LLC will provide the charging order protection as an exclusive remedy.
- Alaska
- South Dakota
- Nevada
- Wyoming
Some states allow the charging order to LLC and foreclosure as an option for creditors:
- California
- Colorado
- Hawaii
- Montana
- Utah
After years of speculation and the lack of solid case law, the issue of whether single-member LLCs are afforded the protections of the charging order was finally addressed by a U.S. bankruptcy court in Albright, No. 01-11367 (Colo. Bkrpt. April 4, 2003). The
judge in Albright held that charging order protection does not exist for a single-member LLC because there are no non-debtor members to protect. The court granted full economic and noneconomic rights to the trustee, allowing the bankruptcy trustee to manage the debtor’s
LLC. The trustee subsequently sold the LLC’s property and distributed the net proceeds to the bankruptcy estate to satisfy creditors’ claims.
The Colorado Act provides that where the LLC has no members (such as in the case where the single-member loses her membership interest through foreclosure or as a result of a conveyance to a bankruptcy trustee upon filing a petition in bankruptcy), the non-member assignees “of the last remaining member” may, by the unanimous consent of the assignees, “be admitted as a member or members.” This would include a bankruptcy trustee, a creditor foreclosing on the single-member membership interest, or an heir upon the death of the single-member.
Does this mean a single-member LLC is worthless in these states where the charging order does not protect the member from a lawsuit unrelated to the operating business? No.
The single-member LLC is still a valuable tool against internal liability once that is against the operating company directly.
For example, if you own real estate and a single-member LLC owns it, and a tenant sues the LLC, if the single-member LLC is adequately capitalized, is not the alter ego of the sole member, and is not used to perpetuate a fraud, the tenant may not assert liability against the member. Often, we will structure multiple single-member LLCs owned by one LLC taxed as a partnership to get the best of both worlds.
