MnREIA - Main Monthly Meeting - Land Trusts

Details

Land Trusts are the ultimate in privacy, if you know how to use them and understand the simple legislation that regulates them, or should I say protects our right to use them.

#### Do you use Land Trusts, or do you put your investment properties in your own name for all the predators and creditors to find? I hope not!

Everyone has heard about Land Trusts and they know they should be using them.

A Land Trust keeps your name or your corporations name off public records. It gives you a certain level of privacy.
There are sooo many benefits to using Land Trusts, and I don't know of any negatives related to using them. There is very minimal paper work involved; that takes maybe 5 extra minutes to prepare. There are no separate tax reporting issues to deal with because the IRS considers a Land Trust to be a Flow-Through-Entity, which means that you report the property on your own (or your corporations) tax report.

Why use a Land Trust?

Privacy. A land trust keeps your name or your companies name off of public records and out of the chain of title. Privacy is extremely important to most people who don’t want others knowing what they own. For example, if you own several properties within a city that has strict code enforcement, you could end up being hauled into court for too many violations, even minor ones. Having your real estate titled in land trusts makes it difficult for city code enforcement to find who the owner is, since the trust agreement is not public record for everyone to see.
Land Trusts are Assignable/Wholesalable. The ownership of a land trust (called the “beneficial interest”) is assignable, similar to the way stock in a corporation is assignable. Once property is title in trust, the beneficiary of the trust can be changed without changing title to the property. This can be very advantageous in the case of a real estate contract that is non-assignable, such as in the case of a bank-owned or HUD property. Instead of making your offer in your own name, make the offer in the name of a land trust, then assign your interest in the land trust to a third party at or after closing avoiding the whole seasoning issue.

What will be covered: