Title or share documents, the entity's formation papers, any management or service agreements, income and expense records, and tax filings showing how the holding is treated. Add anything describing operations, such as staff arrangements or supplier contracts. These records let an adviser distinguish investment ownership from a trading enterprise on the facts rather than on the owner's characterisation.
Bring the boring paperwork too
Owners tend to present the flattering documents, appraisals, projections, photographs, and leave out the ledgers. The ledgers are what answer the question. Expense records show whether anyone is running anything; tax treatment shows how the activity has been reported until now.
Where a third-party manager handles everything, bring that contract as well, since it may describe control sitting somewhere other than with the owner personally. Bring the ledgers, not only the appraisals. Owners tend to present the flattering documents, meaning valuations, projections, and photographs, and to leave out the expense records that actually answer the question of whether anyone is running anything.
Bring title or share documents, the entity's formation papers, any management or service agreements, income and expense records, and tax filings showing how the holding has been treated until now. Where a third-party manager handles everything, bring that contract too, since it may describe control sitting somewhere other than with the owner personally. Those records let an adviser distinguish investment ownership from a trading enterprise on facts.