Most business owners put their real estate tax bill on autopay and never look at it again. Carlo Betts, founder of Rittenhouse Appraisals and Reduxx Group, says that habit is costing companies real money, and it is about to get worse.

On this episode of How Was I Supposed To Know That?, small business attorney Bernard A. Williams, Esq. welcomes Carlo Betts back to the show to talk about real estate taxes and real estate as a growth strategy. Carlo explains what an overassessment is, how a property tax appeal actually works (and what happens when a municipality refuses to budge), and why cuts in government funding are pushing more businesses into overassessed territory.

The conversation then turns to strategy: how owners use mixed-use buildings and small strip centers to grow from one location to many, why doctors are often risky real estate investors, the one lease clause every small business tenant should ask for, and where the Philadelphia real estate market is headed.

If you own or lease the property your business runs out of, this episode is a reason to pull out your last assessment and take a closer look.

Chapters:
0:00 Welcome Back, Carlo Betts
1:18 What Reduxx Group Does
3:16 Launching a Second Company While Running the First
5:12 What Is a Property Tax Overassessment?
6:45 How the Real Estate Tax Appeal Process Works
7:18 When a Tax Appeal Goes to Litigation
9:06 Why More Businesses Are Being Overassessed
11:43 Should Every Property Owner Review Their Assessment?
12:18 When You Are Underassessed: Stay Quiet
14:34 Real Estate Tax Mistakes Business Owners Make
15:46 Using Real Estate as a Business Growth Strategy
18:20 First Steps: Define Your Target Market
21:12 When the Real Estate Strategy Goes Wrong
22:52 Why Doctors Make Risky Real Estate Investors
23:49 The Philadelphia Real Estate Market Outlook
26:19 Should Philadelphia Host the Olympics?
29:19 The Future of Homeownership
32:40 Advice for Tenants: Ask for a Right of First Refusal
33:56 What's Next for Reduxx Group

Talk to Company Counsel: https://www.companycounsel.law/contact-us

How Was I Supposed To Know That? is hosted by Bernard A. Williams, Esq. of Company Counsel, fractional general counsel for small businesses in growth mode. Have a legal question you wish someone had warned you about? Send it our way.

#RealEstateTaxes #PropertyTaxAppeal #SmallBusinessLaw #CommercialRealEstate #FractionalGeneralCounsel

We break down why “operational friction” quietly drains time, money, and leadership focus, even in companies that look successful on paper. We also lay out how clean processes, clear decision rights, and trustworthy data can raise business value and reduce risk before and after an M&A deal.

• Operational friction defined as anything that makes execution harder
• Owner dependency as a growth killer and a valuation risk
• Undocumented processes and inconsistent handoffs as hidden costs
• Single points of failure in small teams and big organizations
• Running the business like it must operate without the owner
• Core workflows, accountability, and decision rights that buyers expect
• Meaningful KPIs and reliable systems and data for due diligence
• Post-close integration ownership, culture, and operating rhythm
• Merger versus acquisition differences in roles, tech, and culture
• A practical AI approach: fix one painful process first
• The “hidden friction tax” exercise to find time and revenue leaks
• Intake as a universal process worth improving

They can reach me either by my website, which is thefrictionfixer.com. My email address is Trisha@thefrictionfixer.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn as Trisha Warren, MBA.

We sit down with technology transactions attorney Pooja Teckchandani to get practical about AI risk for entrepreneurs who are moving fast and shipping products. We break down what “AI” actually means, where liability can hide in vendor terms, and how to ask better questions before a launch turns into a fire drill.
• What a technology transactions lawyer does day to day inside a large company
• Career lessons from being the first and only in house lawyer at a fast growing brand
• The difference between automation, generative AI, and agentic AI
• Where AI shows up in real products and back office operations
• Why LLM providers can function like subcontractors and what that changes
• Data retention, deletion, and security posture questions to ask vendors
• How “improvement” language can become a training loophole
• Why AI compliance is often state by state and how to track legal updates
• Risk decisions when building agents and who owns output responsibility
You can go on to my website, which is tech-law.com, T E C K L A W.com or you can find me on LinkedIn.