Randy Advantages of Using a Revocable Land Trust 1.Avoids property being probated (out of court transfer upon death of beneficiary) 2.Ease of Transferability 3.Judgments do not attach to the property 4.No Partition (avoids spouse’s “forced share†sale buyout upon divorce) 5.Easier management with multiple owners (multiple owners do not have to sign docs) 6.No costs upon transferring beneficiary 7.No registered agent needed 8.Legal and Equitable property interest in trustee’s name 9.Income and Expense conduit, not a business with tax consequences 10.No tax return to file (pass thru entity) 11.Trustee has no personal liability 12.No annual fees like other entities, if trustee is an individual or friend 13.Estate planning – successor beneficiaries 14.Less expense in grantor creating trust over entity 15.Avoids the due on sale clause 16.Privacy of ownership – Helps Avoid Identity Theft of your name 17.Keep sales price private 18.Able to fracture interests of multiple owners w/o being partners 19.Ease of linkage to other asset protection entities 20.Non-judicial repossessions of real estate sold on installment contract 21.1099 not required for transfers (personal property not subject to real estate regulations) 22.Ease of operating across state lines 23.Ability to insert poison pills 24.Lots of case law to support land trust law 25.Many attorneys do not study this section of the law – not profitable for them 26.No recordation of the Trust Agreement 27.To avoid “seasoning†problems (secondary market rules of ownership) 28.To save title insurance premiums (Trustee-insured-remains the same) 29.Good negotiating technique in the sale or purchase of property (Disney World used trusts to acquire land prior to construction to avoid price escalation) 30.To provide non-recourse financing 31.Lowering of real estate taxes (prevents re-assessment) 32.Avoids state regulations that apply to corporations and LLC’s As you can see, Land Trusts are a wonderful tool for you to hide your assets, avoid real estate tax increases, privatize your sales transactions, avoid probate and use for many other benefits.

The turnaround time is just about instantaneous for online reports, and they do offer telephone verification of landlord and employment references if you're willing to pay a little more for it.

I reside in California and am organizing myself to invest out of state.  I have several markets in mind, but I have not decided which state I will be investing in.  I plan to create one or more LLC's in the investment...

No verification of experience, no criminal background check, no verification of education, no citizenship check, etc?

They would pay the application fee, submit income verification.

I am just a little uneasy about sending someone enough information to steal my identity if I can't meet them in person.

I still can't get it straight in my head...Let's take two simple, hypothetical scenarios, assuming identical property values, say 200k, and a 100k mortgage.1.

They don't have any understanding of your local market, so they really can't help you unless you happen to live in an area with an identical market as theirs.

I have inquired with my SDIRA custodian on this previously and was told that it would be a prohibited transaction even if the two notes had identical rates, terms, etc.  

I’ve had this happen before from a couple tenants concerning the fraud allegations that somebody hacked their account or stole their identity .