Protect your privacy with land trusts

Land trusts are nothing more than a legal “entity” to hold title to a property. One of the advantages to a land trust is that the owner of record is not you!

A land trust simply transfers a property to a trust, and names a trustee to manage the trust (a lawyer, friend, or relative with a different last name). The trust then owns the property, and your name is omitted from the ownership papers (the deed or title).

But you own the trust. You would be called the beneficiary of the trust.

Obviously, it is a little more complicated than that. But here's the bottom line. If some sue-happy person is looking to see if you personally own any assets, he or she will have a hard time finding what you own if your property is in trusts. All your properties would be listed as being owned by a trust.

And each property would (or should be) a separate trust. So if you owned 123 Main Street and your name is John Lucky, Suzy Suehappy would go to the county clerk to ask for all the property that John Lucky owns, but come back empty-handed. She would see that the present property is owned by 123 Main Street Trust (or whatever you wanted to name it), and that there are no other properties owned by 123 Main Street Trust.

Suzy Suehappy then goes on to property owner Jane Notsolucky to find all her properties that she put in her name, and forgets about you. Suzy Suehappy is very happy to run across Jane Notsolucky, because Jane owns lots of stuff from which she can choose.

There are other reasons for placing your real estate holdings in separate trusts, but maintaining anonymity is one good one.

Brandy Eismon