The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Real Estate and Landlording => Topic started by: workwheniwantto on June 28, 2013, 01:04:51 PM
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I tried the search function, and was surprised to find no reference to "land trust" in the MMM forums. Does anyone here use them, and what forms/trustees do you use?
I would like to find someone to trustee my assets and I would trustee theirs in return. I would prefer someone with a really common last name in another state; I can offer the same for you - I am Miller in PA, which is up there with Jones and Smith around here.
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To what point and purpose?
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To what point and purpose?
My primary reason to put in a land trust is to keep ownership private - less of a target for ambulance chasers, and makes
"will have to speak with the owner" conversations more plausible. Secondary reason is it makes title transfer easier - either for estate planning or for avoiding property recording fees and transfer tax.
Main reasons not to do it are banks will rarely ever loan to a trust (unless you put in your name first, and then transfer - though I would not want to do that in my case, since that reduces the effectiveness of the above reasons.)
The out-of-state common name is not necessary, though the appeal is it makes it even more difficult to track down the owner since they need to get to the trustee first - and since only first initial, last name and state are usually required on the recorded documents, finding J. Smith in California will be a bit of a daunting task.
It offers no liability protection (other than discouragement), so you'd need an entity be the owner of the trust if you are seeking that protection.
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Just wanted to nudge this to the top again. Reciprocal land trusting seems like a mustachian thing to do - owning solid long-term, appreciating, dividend-paying investment, and reducing costs and headaches through reciprocity with (a) like-minded individual(s).
I have some draft Land Trust docs now, and can have my attorney review them free of charge for your state.
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I'm just having a hard time figuring out why I would want the risk of entering into this sort of arrangement with someone I don't really know versus paying my bank a few hundred dollars a year (a guess) to do it for me.
I'm assuming it isn't very expensive because we recently bought a condo from an old lady who uses the same bank and she had it in a trust they were trustee-ing.
There would be too much homework to be done to be at all comfortable about it, and even then I'm not sure I'd sleep well at night.
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I'm just having a hard time figuring out why I would want the risk of entering into this sort of arrangement with someone I don't really know versus paying my bank a few hundred dollars a year (a guess) to do it for me.
I'm assuming it isn't very expensive because we recently bought a condo from an old lady who uses the same bank and she had it in a trust they were trustee-ing.
There would be too much homework to be done to be at all comfortable about it, and even then I'm not sure I'd sleep well at night.
Definitely wouldn't use a bank. Maybe a lawyer.