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Well, depends on the situation and what state you are in.
If you have a strong enough chapter, you can go about it in several ways.
I think the most commonly used approached to actually purchasing a house for chapter purposes would be to form an organization or a corporation that would hold title.
Really, a zeta (or chapter) is a more complex version of a college club. You just wouldn't have an organization with revolving membership say one day "let's buy a house" and actually go out and buy one.
Well, I guess you technically could and each member would hold a tenancy in common with the other brothers, but the legal mess would make it almost impossible and definately not worth it.
So once you establish some entity (and how that entity will run) to purchase, and hopefully maintain the property, you need some financing.
This depends on what part of the country and what state you are in.
The basic structure would be: Zeta Corporation purchases property with funds from a mortgage (and hopefully alumni contributions). Zeta Corporation either leases or rents the property to the chapter as a whole or individual members. Chapter or individual members pay rent to the corporation. Zeta Corporation pays the debts and upkeep.
J, what state are you in? My very first piece of advice would be to look in your alumni directory and find an alumni who is admitted to practice law in your state. That should be step one.
One thing about LXA, we produce A LOT of lawyers. There's probably a dozen of us on this board. Out of 30 brothers when I was an active, 6 of us went to law school.
Find an alumni lawyer willing to donate some time to the cause. The main purpose is to set up the controlling organization. It's not hard or expensive work and almost every lawyer should be able to do it.
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