PUTTING YOUR REAL ESTATE IN A TRUST ACCOUNT

[Anna M.]

SCENARIO:
1. Every property gets its own trust and ideally it's own LLC - check! (Got that)
2. Give the trust a unique name that does not bring it back to me (Anna) and give it a P.O. Box address - 🤔Question?☝️ Won’t someone be able to track down and find out that I own that P.O. box?
3. I (Anna) am the grantor - check!
4. Do not name myself (Anna) as the trustee - check!
5. Instead find someone not related to me to name as Trustee (John Smith - has to be a real person) - 🤔 Question?☝️uhhhmmm so this is where it starts getting tricky, I did that on previous Trust and just about had to pay the person to quit deed😳 so I could refinance as the bank would not refinance the property while in a trust.
6. The Trustee can be in a different state or even country (so am assuming send them the trust agreement to have wet signed and notarized and get it back to you?)
7. So I (Anna) grant the property to John Smith as Trustee to 123 Main Street Trust and then I name my LLC as the beneficiary - check!
8. Upon granting the property to Trustee, I am assuming I re-record title in the assessors office so that the property now shows up as owned by 123 Main Street Trust, or do I not do that and keep it showing up as owned by me (Anna)?🤔2nd Question?☝️if I am member and Manager of that LLC and that is public knowledge, how then do I keep my anonymity?
9. LLC serves as agent to the owner, herein 123 Main Street Trust, so rents get paid to the LLC (not the Trust) and the leases bare the LLC name as property manager and agent to the Trust - is that correct?👀
10. Tax documentation goes to LLC (or is it the Trust?🤨😣), as the LLC or me Anna since am a single member LLC and also have a full time Job will combine my tax filing to include income from job and income from rentals - is that correct?👀

I know what you are going to say, hire an attorney😔 and I will as I know it is best to set these things up right until then any idea of what step(s)☝️I got wrong?👀

PS. If there is already a post about this somewhere in the group, please point me to it. Thank you.

[Costin I.]

1. Yes, every property gets its own trust, but you should look into Series-LLC, instead of the rather expensive option of individual LLCs.

2. The transfer deed (recommended to use warranty deed for title insurance preservation) gets recorded in the Trustee name (initially the attorney creating the trust). The trustee after recording resigns and trustee gets changed back - the trust has language to that extent built in.

3. The property will show as owned by 123 Main Street Trust, thus giving you a layer of privacy/anonimity (from the "bottom"). Like Alexander Burnett said above, Land Trusts is a privacy feature. It is a private document that is typically not recorded thus making it a difficult entity to sue. The ownership of the Trust is often kept anonymous and out of the public records.

4. You have another trust acting as manager of your Holding LLC, thus giving you a layer of privacy/anonimity (from the "top").

5. You do NOT want the taxes to go to your name/address, that will invalidate all your eforts for protection & anonimity.

6. You should have another LLC for all operations, all public facing interactions, rent collections, property management, contractors hiring, lease contracts, etc. This "Operations LLC" doesn't hold any assets and only has a property management contract with your "Holding LLC", the main idea being you separate your asset holding from operations and from your person.

And like Chris says, "I’m not your attorney. What I wrote above does not create an attorney/client relationship between us. I wrote the above for informational purposes. Do not rely on it for legal advice. Always consult with your attorney before you rely on the above information.".