Re: Group reluctance to incorporate <FWD>
From: Stephen Hawthorne (hawthornacpub.duke.edu)
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 94 18:24 CDT
> Steve Farley (sfarley [at] igc.apc.org) is the author of this message 

> are reluctant to establish legal status for the group (incorporation,
> partnership, etc.) prior to optioning the land. 
> 
> How have other groups handled this phase of the process?  

There were four of us at Blue Heron who each put up $10K in order to
make the downpayment on our owner-financed 65 acres.  We hadn't intended
to incorporate but were told by an atty that if our names as individuals were
on the title chain, then we as individuals would be 
financially responsible for legal complications down the line, especially
any costs for toxic cleanup required by the state at any point in the future.

So the day before closing we filed as a corporation and are now working
out the details of governance as a coop.

One wonderful and unexpected bonus for being a corporation and a coop,
owning the land in common, is that we don't come under the county's 
subdivision ordinances, since we aren't subdividing, and so don't
have to do our siteplan for automobiles, we can do it for pedestrians.

Stephen Hawthorne
Blue Heron Farm
Chatham County, NC

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