Land Trust Questions

General Real Estate Investing
1

I’ve done a lot of searching but still have a lot of questions. I’ll make them easy:

  1. Do most investors form their own trust or use an existing trust?

  2. If you do form your own - how do you go about starting that process? I can’t find much info on it.

  3. Is one trust enough for all your REI needs, or are multiple recommended as is the case with LLC’s?

  4. What’s the “upkeep” on a Land Trust like? What I mean is that for LLCs I know you need to have board meetings, funding, etc.

Thanks

2

pepemt,

what are you trying to accomplish by setting up a trust?

Setting up a land trust is an easy process and you might want to check out some of the posts that mtnwizard has posted. He has an informative website that might answer some of your questions. I believe he is affiliated with the guys at North American Realty Services (NARS), Inc. at www.landtrust.net. They are the foremost experts on landtrusts. They have a transfer system called the “PACTrust” and “NEHTrust” and each one depends on whether you are the investor or the resident living in the property. You can use the PACTrust for your personal Residence and a NEHTrust for your investments.

In these types of Land Trust’s the legal and equitable title is held by a trustee while you remain in complete control. They are beneficiary directed insted of trustee directed. In this way you can hold a 10% beneficiary interest in the trust and using the guidelines of IRS code 163 (i believe … verify with a CPA) you can retain the tax benefits of ownership and your corporation or Resident Tenant or who ever can live in the property or hold the other portion of beneficial interest. The key is to have 2 non-related people or entities hold the beneficial interest.

Anyway, most of your questions would probably be best answered by a CPA. But I thought I would try to point you in the direction of the Land Trust Experts and explain how the “Equity holding Trust” from NARS works. It is a fantastic system.

3

pepemt,

  1. Most investors use their own trust if they already own the home, but pay for a trust in the seller’s name who retains a 10% ownership interest if buying the property, “subject to”.

  2. The trust is simple to set up.

  3. I like to use one trust per property, although you can place as many as four properties into a trust. I recommend this only for properties you are going to hold on to for a lengthy period of time.

  4. No upkeep. No board meetings, no collecting rent (the Trustee does that), etc.

Da Wiz

4

it’s simple to set up? great!

where do I start? ;D

5

there are several organizations that help people and provide training. I think mtn wizard does it as well as I haveworked with Ward Hanigan in San Diego (www.foreclosureforum.com).

An excellent book on Land Trust is Mark Warda. He has a website, but I don’t remember what it (just use google) I think you can buy the book on amazon. Warda has been doing trust for 25 yrs and also writes other books for Nolo.

6

thanks, i’ll do some more digging around

7

Mancuso is the writer for NOLO. Warda wrote books for Sphynx.

http://www.warda.net/LTSC.html

Warda has a book specifically for “Land Trusts in Florida” and one for the 50 states.

8

Bill Gatten has a free ebook, No Down, No New Loan on land trusts, subject to, etc. Just Google and you’ll find it.

Da Wiz