Hi, I'm looking to have a raffle/Lottery with the prize being my house. I would like to sell 600 tickets @ $1000.00 each. This would take place in Long Island, New York. One winner will get title of house and land. Is this legal? how can I go about it? If anyone can help me stay out of jail, I would really appreciate any advise you can give. Thanks. Tommy James
I am not sure on the exact law(s) concerning this. I imagine that you will have to register somewhere for your raffle and as always its best to have legal representation for signing of the deed and the contract which the tickets are sold under. Hire/consult with counsel for more information. Good luck.
I suggest googling for real-estate lawyers within the NY area. Most offer on the phone consultations for free. Cheers,
What you are doing is a form of gambling, so there will definitly be a huge amount of legal issues setting a raffle of this type up. Further more it's probably not the best way to sell your house money wise.
You will also need to be sure that you have documented rules in place for what happens when you don't sell enough tickets. They used to do a house raffle here every year and only once did they actually sell enough tickets to give away the house.. Usually the construction company that gave away the house lost a lot of money on the deal.. Now, if you still want to do this you will need a permit at the very least, and you need to discuss this with a lawyer in your county to make sure you follow all the laws..
Yes, by all means, run to a lawyer. They need the work. Or, then, you could just type it into google and have your answer in 2 seconds. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=real+estate+raffles+"new+york"&btnG=Search
The first hit for that search: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/garden/25raffle.html You need to find out if raffling a house is legal where you live. If it is, you also need to find out how to set it up legally. The easiest way to do that is to consult with a real estate agent who knows the ins and outs of the law.