But if you have an LLC, and nothing else to show up as your assets (because you used land trusts to give you a layer of anonymity and a simple search is not revealing you are owning many other juicy assets) an ambulance chasing lawyer working on contingency will see a small target on your back and hard to get proceeds from victory in a lengthy lawsuit and move onto easier paydays. 

The fifth pillar is owning everything anonymously.

The best two strategies for real estate asset protection that I've heard many times are i) Wyoming Holding LLC (for anonymity and charging order protection) + creating individual LLCs for each of your assets OR ii) Texas Series LLC as Holding company + creating individual series in the Holding LLC to hold each asset, and then have an Operating LLC that you own as an individual.

I am wanting asset protection, but not sure anonymity is that important to me (trusts may not be necessary at the moment, please comment). 3.)

I'll check on the wal-mart Bank Bryan-- good ideaI worry about keeping things straight too...good pointsI see why they don't want to use the internet system for rent payments, and I see why I should want to...it's a fine line when it comes to demanding too much from the tenants I'm talking about I think...Maybe if I put the tenants in charge of a receipt book or something...at least that way those tricky, possibly anonymous cash deposits should have a record on their end.It'd be nice if this just wasn't an issue!

I do not believe in commingling assets plus you avoid a DOS which I know is a not going to happen but you know doing it this way it never can since you are following federal law specifically USC 1701 j d (3) or Garn St Germain Act of 1982 under section 8a.No only do you get anonymity in your real estate holdings you get a degree of asset protection not ironclad yet nothing really is..Most investors do not understand the distinct advantages of using land trusts in their investing there are actually 30 realized benefits if not more.What you should also consider if you wish to leverage this property for the higher lease payment is you can do a tax lease trust and have the beneficiary take the active tax write-off following IRC 163 h 4 (d) and no tax advice intended and that is a tax lease trust since you probably wish somebody to take care of the property and a N-N-N lease would work very well in that case.

I don't really care about being published, would even be happy doing it anonymously since I'm not peddling anything.

When a service company tries so hard to remain anonymous, it raises serious red flags for me.

It had nothing to do with giving large sums to get buildings named after me, my wife and I have always given anonymously and I still continue that to this day.

I'm sure you personally keep your units in good repair, but this guy did not and he gives all LLs a black eye.Where I live the very few slumlords create huge headaches for all the rest of us like nazi-like neighborhood associations, landlord registration where you don't get to be anonymous behind an LLC, code-enforcement gestapo tactics that fine the LL for tenant's actions (like $100 if they don't keep the grass below 8 inches), and on and on.Look, I'm sure that tenant was a sludge-bag, but so was he.