Hi Seth:
So here's my review thus far. Also the 2848 is
attached. You will need to fill out Section 1, and then sign it at section
9 on the second page. Just ignore the PIN number thing.
First, the By Laws need some adjustment. Section 3.1
still says that every member of the Coop becomes a member of the
Board. The Articles state it correctly, but they also say that the details
are stated in the By Laws, and then the By Laws say the wrong thing. So,
that needs to be fixed to match the plan currently stated in the
Articles.
I will note that it seems that the large house has a master
lease, and each individual then rents from the Coop, but in the smaller house,
the Coop appears to have no legal role. There is no agreement which
mentions the Coop. Is this right, or is there something with that landlord
that references the coop? I'm not sure it really matters too much. I
think that perhaps you could say that, "at this time we are working on getting
the landlord to agree to a master lease, but that is still in
negotiation." Or something like that.
You asked some specific questions:
You asked about how to answer Part IV Question 2, but you must
have really meant Part VI Question 2. I too had a comment about the answer
there. That is the question about whether you put limitations upon
who may receive your services. Your answer does properly say that YES you
do limit who can get your services. However, in your narrative answer all
you say is that it is limited to your members. Change this answer so that
you are not thinking about the current members get services, but more think
about who could be a member. So your answer would instead be focused upon,
"the only people who can get our services are people who fall into the required
low income categories ....." You limit who can get your services in that
way. That changes it from, "our services benefit our own members," to "our
services benefit the low income members of our community ..." but sadly enough
we can only help as many people as we have bedrooms at any given time.
With that sort of change to the attached answer to this question you have it
right.
In terms of the Part 7, question 2, related to the 26 month
thing, you did everything right. You DO NEED to also include, with
your final submission, the first page of a 501c4 application. That form is
called a 1024. You will see that the form is essentially identical to the
1023, so it will be easy to fill out.
In Part X you said Not a Foundation, but rather a Public
Charity - that's correct. And you checked "h," which also is
correct.
There is no longer any such thing as advanced rulings, but
they have not changed the form to get rid of that. So all applications are
now for definitive rulings. That requires also filling out the bottom of
page 11, and you did that and you did it correctly.
Whether you will need to pay $750 or $300 depends upon whether
your gross "income" is over $10,000.00 per year. Since I don't have your
financials, I don't know. But that's what determines it.
You can be low income housing, pursuant to IRS review, and
have nothing to do with HUD what so ever. That is just fine.
Then on to the 1023 itself.
What you sent me had no answers in Part I sections 1 -
6. Of course you need to fill all that in. Also the answer to section
11 about date of incorporation.
Then Part III, questions 1 and 2b, you need to insert the
section references for the recent amendment to the Articles.
Part V, section 1a, you either need to insert the information
(which I saw you already have in an attachment) or insert "see
attachment." Part V, sections b and c, you need to say
"none."
Then Part V section 8, it asks, do you have any leases or
contracts with officers or directors. You said NO but the answer is
YES. Each one of them is an occupant and has an occupancy
agreement. So you need to say so. But also make a big point of
saying that the terms applicable to them, are the same as for any other
member, and the qualifications for admission applied to them, are
identical to those applicable to any member of the public.
Section IX. You posted something on Drop box as a txt
file, but I couldn't open it, or rather all I got was a one sentence title for
the document, and not the document itself. You need to fill out both A and
B. Remember that in A the "rent" paid by members should be listed in line
2 for membership fees.
Only other little point is that I would suggest adding a
reference into the Narrative to note the other items which you are including
which say a lot about what you do. Your Narrative is pretty short.
However, other info you are including says plenty. So maybe just add
something like, "also make sure to look at X, Y & Z which are also
attached." Or something like that.
Finally, just thinking ahead here. Are you going to send
in everything once its ready or were you hoping I would do that. Either
way works. I typically write a short cover letter trying to argue in favor
of exemption. So, if you are going to mail it in, then I'll do that and
send it to you to include in the submission. If I am mailing it in, then I
won't send it to you in advance, but rather as part of the copy of the full
submission, when that gets mailed in.
So, there you go for now. Very very close to being
ready. Good job. Looks good to me.
