[WSBARP] Depositing cash for marijuana sale to trust account.

[Richard Holland]

I am with Craig and Bryce on this one.  We do quite a few escrows and we have a completely separate escrow account than what we use as our legal 'trust account'.  No way I would put that in my trust account because I can't see how I could explain WHY it went in there other than to lend it legitimacy when I wired/transferred it to Escrow.  And, as Bryce said, whether trust account or escrow account the Bank is going to have to report a deposit of that much cash and I should think alarms are going to start going off somewhere.

From: wsbarp-bounces at lists.wsbarppt.com [mailto:wsbarp-bounces at lists.wsbarppt.com] On Behalf Of Paul Neumiller
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2017 12:23 PM
To: 'WSBA Real Property Listserv' <wsbarp at lists.wsbarppt.com>
Subject: Re: [WSBARP] Depositing cash for marijuana sale to trust account.

Craig, while I don't have an answer for you, it does remind me of advice given to my criminal law course in first year law school, "If someone has to go to jail, make sure it is the client and not you"

Why go through your trust account?  If the client is getting a lender's policy of title insurance, have the client make a direct deposit of the money into escrow just like a regular re-finance of real property.  While there are associated costs with going through a third party escrow, it may be worthwhile to avoid your trust account.  (And don't worry, I'm sure the listerv can get together and draw straws to see who visits you in jail.  It's the right thing to do.)

[cid:image002.jpg at 01D2B9D0.D38A2D70]

From: wsbarp-bounces at lists.wsbarppt.com<mailto:wsbarp-bounces at lists.wsbarppt.com> [mailto:wsbarp-bounces at lists.wsbarppt.com] On Behalf Of Craig Gourley
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2017 11:54 AM
To: wsbarp at lists.wsbarppt.com<mailto:wsbarp at lists.wsbarppt.com>
Subject: [WSBARP] Depositing cash for marijuana sale to trust account.

Listmates.  I have a client that is in the business of legally growing marijuana.  He wants to loan a friend money to construct a new commercial building.  Loan will be about $1,000,000.  Client has this in cash because apparently, he can't deposit it in a bank due to its source being the grow operation.   Does anyone have any experience with this type of scenario?  We will need to deposit the money into our trust account and then fund the loan and record a DOT against the real estate.  I don't want to get accused of some sort of money laundering or other nonsense so I am hoping someone may have already researched this issue.   Thank you in advance.  Craig

Gourley Law Group
Snohomish Escrow
The Exchange Connection

1002 10th Street / PO Box 1091
Snohomish, WA 98291

360.568.5065
360.568.8092  fax
Craig at glgmail.com<mailto:Craig at glgmail.com>

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