Cohousing-L Mailing List: Early financing, loans & the SEC

[Tom Hammer (thammer302]

Hi All,

Many, many thanks to all who have given us their
experience about how to work out your financial
structure.  We've received two seemingly conflicting
pieces of advice about loans.

Do we risk running afoul of SEC regulations if we
solicit or accept loans from investors who are not
members of the group?  I understand several groups
have done this.  I don't think it's a state specific
question since the SEC is federal.

>From what I read in Liz Walker's book,  EcoVillage at
Ithaca had outside lenders, for example, and she
doesn't mention any SEC red tape...

Any advice or language of loan agreements you can give
us would be extremely helpful.

Tom Hammer
for Concord Village

----------------------------------


We did not have a cash-call system.  If we were going
to hit a 
period of exceptional expenses (much of which could be
anticipated), we 
solicited voluntary member-household contributions,
which (unlike the 
capital contributions) paid interest, and/or solicited
outside lenders 
and 
investors (including some on this list -- Thanks
again!!).

Hope this helps.  All the best!

Regards,
David Heimann
Jamaica Plain Cohousing


Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2006 21:57:49 -0500
From: Dave and Diane <daveanddee [at] verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Financial structure advice needed
for forming
        group
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Message-ID:
<6780710F-7A9E-11DB-BF21-0003936C420C [at] verizon.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII;
format=flowed

Hi everyone in coho-land!
I just want to clarify one thing--we did NOT have
investors. Anyone who 
loaned us money had to either be an associate member
or know a member 
of the group well enough to give them a personal loan.
When you have 
investors it creates a whole new ball of wax and you
have to create a 
prospectus, submit an annual report, file with the
SEC, etc. etc. etc. 
etc. Trust me--you do NOT want to go there.
--Diane(:^[

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