Protecting assets with Land Trusts in Local LLC /Wyoming LLC

[Michael Aschenbrenner]

Ok, been doing my homework ... I am not a lawyer. If someone sees any problems with this, let me know.

Let's see if this makes sense. I'm looking for the ultimate in external and internal protection of my assets in AZ with the least hassle and total anonymity. 

AZ does not offer Series LLC's yet or that might have been an option as well.

Unfortunately, AZ releases the owner and address of LLC's to anyone that asks. (Not good if someone sues me personally.) Since I own the AZ LLC, it is listed on my assets, and anyone suing me can find out the resources of the LLC and attempt to access those resources in a lawsuit. That is, unless my AZ LLC is "owned / managed" by another LLC in a state that does not release that information. Wyoming, Delaware ... Thus I need (2) LLC's for external property protection. One to do business in AZ and another for anonymity and asset protection. Am I making sense so far?

1.) To keep my name off all assets, and yet offer ease of movement into and out of the LLC's for selling assets, I set up a trust to purchase each individual property (And another for every other thing my wife and I own, cars, clothes, Jewelry, guns, cats ...) All Assets of value go into a "Grantor Trust" w/ all individual properties in their own trust. With the trustee being my local AZ LLC.

a.) The individual trusts isolate liability from the "other" trusts, if I am not mistaken, so each properties internal liabilities (Example law suits not covered by insurance) are limited to that individual property. 

b.) Plus they are easy to move into and out of my AZ LLC (Which I need to be able to do business in AZ.) to put back into personal name for easier sales of properties. The Trust is listed as owner of each property.

b.) Liability for each property is limited to that particular trust. If I am correct.

c.) Bankers are used to letting trusts own property for lien purposes. LLC's, not so much.

Does this make sense? Am I overthinking things ... again? All of the forms to create these things are available online. LLC's are legally considered persons and can possess things like trusts.

I would need a bank account for each LLC and a person to act as local trustee in the Wyoming, where I am thinking about having the out of state LLC.

Questions, problems, legal issues ...? Anyone who has done something similar?

[Scott Smith]

While I have assisted many investors with the Wyoming LLC, it is not the only method to introduce anonymity for an LLC. When establishing an LLC you can also nest it into an Agent Trust for external anonymity, which functions in a similar way as the Land Trust would for the individual property. The involves having an attorney sign as the "nominee trustee." This means your name does not appear on public record, and instead it is a name protected under attorney-client privilege.

This means you can create and operate a (Series) LLC from any state with anonymity on public record. An example of what the structure of a Series LLC with anonymity would look like is this:

............................................................... Series LLC...........................................................................

....................................................... Agent Trust (anonymity) .................................................................

Child Series 1 ...................................... Child Series 2 ......................................... Child Series 2 ........... (etc)

Land Trust 1 ........................................ Land Trust 2 ........................................... Land Trust 2 ............ (etc)

Property 1 ............................................ Property 2 ............................................ Property 2 .............. (etc)

But it is just another option. Both work. I have just found that often the Wyoming LLC is more work than is required simply to introduce anonymity externally.

And as other people have mentioned in this thread, many trusts do not actually offer liability protection. If you are operating something like a Delaware Statutory Trust you are in a good spot, but that is not what it appears the OP was referring to.

The simplest and most effective asset protection strategies have often included a Series LLC as the asset holding company and traditional LLC(s) as operating companies. The asset holding company is implementing best strategies for both external and internal liability and will also separate each property into it's own "child" series for liability purposes. The Traditional LLC conducts the highest liability actions to limit exposure and carry the lionshare of the liability. Of course it all just depends on what types of investments you have and the size of your portfolio.