Va State Law Concerning Sweepstakes/Lottery
 

Braintrust.......................has anyone ever (publicaly) done a sweepstakes/lottery on Real Estate?? I was told that only established charities could lawfully hold sweepstakes lotteries??

I'm trying to think of out of the box ways to sell my Dad's prime property - custom built house and almost 8 acres of land in Va's horse country. Spent a lot of dough getting it in great, no excuses saleable condition, interviewed multiple agents, lowered the price twice in 5 months to almost tax value, some tire kickers, some like it a lot - no firm offers

My thought was to sell 2500 tickets @ $250 per for a chance to win the house. if we dont sell enough with in 10 months, we'll donate all proceeds to Childrens hospital. Will set up escrow at local bank etc.

I was told this is not legal?? Anyone else here have experience with not-so-obvious real estate selling to get it sold??
Thanks!!

Talk to a good local CPA, it will be money worth investing. I believe there are some air-tight revocable trusts that allow you to give a % to charity.

While I have no idea if there is a difference between a "Car lottery" (Like the annual Porsche raffle) and a Real Estate Lottery from an IRS/tax standpoint. I do believe that only companies with 501c3 (non-profit) status can hold these types of fund raising events legally. In addition, they can only do two of these events a year.

I am interested in getting more tax information about these fund raising events though. I am involved with a non-profit animal org that could use the fund-raising money.

Someone in the area did this within the past couple years. It was on the news. They didn't get quite the response they wanted however. Can you PM me the address of the property? I wonder how far it is from existing home.

Steve - 4878 Winchester Rd. / The Plains, Va. - With in eye sight of the Meadows Event grounds

Similar thing happened around here last year. They didnt reach the min. entrants and returned everyone's $$. I'm sure that was a lot more work than expected.

Looks like a cool place. Zillow says ~510k. I bet it's a lot simpler to drop the price and move it.

Good luck

Yeah - Zillow is little low on this. Tax eval is almost $540K -