First Time Investor Purchase - Land Trust & LLC Formation

[Laura R.]

Hello, I'm under contract on my first rental property located in Buffalo, NY. The property will be financed with a mortgage in my personal name. 

My understanding is that I will need to take title in my personal name to begin with to satisfy the mortgage requirements. However, I own another active full-time business that I want to keep totally separate from the rental activities. So just owning the property personally with an umbrella insurance doesn't sound like a great idea. I will be using a property manager since I'm out of state. 

I've read about the strategy of putting title into a land trust and then having the trust owned by an LLC. Has anyone done this successfully in Upstate New York? Should I be asking the attorney firm who is handling my closing to help me with this? Or should this all be kept secret from the bank and I should use a different attorney since they are all working together on the closing?