Hi Lee Phillips here
yeah i'm a lawyer don't hold that against me
as always
let me talk to you for a minute about who owns the property in a trust
now
really doesn't matter whether it's a living revocable trust
the one that you use for estate planning
to avoid probate
or an irrevocable trust that you can use to shift income
and to do all that sort of stuff
and we have YouTubes on those things
but
who owns the property
the beneficiary
the guy who put it in
I mean when you put it into a living revocable trust to avoid probate
that's a disregarded entity
everybody says it's you
well it's not you
it's actually an entity
and technically in all of the trusts
the trustee
holds the property
for the benefit of the beneficiaries
so you've got to remember there are three parts to your trust's name
there's the name of the trust
the date of the trust
and the trustee
all three of those elements have to be on the signature card of the bank
they have to be on the deed
they have to be on the brokerage account
they have to be everywhere
because
we have to identify the trust
and then technically the trustee holds the title
or owns the property
owns the bank account
now they don't own it personally though
I can't sue them and get to that
they hold the property
they own the property
in their fiduciary duty
and the fiduciary duty is a big deal
if you actually understood what it was nobody would be a trustee
because you are obligated
to hold that property
in your name
for the benefit of the beneficiaries
so it's not yours
and I can't sue you and take it away from you
you don't pay taxes on it
it's not yours and yet you own it
but you own it as trustee
which is a big deal
and it's very different than you owning it outright
or as a joint tenant or
tenant common or
whatever it is
you own it as a trustee
and a trustee is a very sacred obligation under the law
so who owns it
trustee owns it
and normally you're the trustee of your living revocable trust
so you own it
you control it
you do everything with it
it's yours
now people who put property into land trusts
are trying to stay anonymous very often
anonymity
and we've got another YouTube on anonymity with trusts
anonymous trusts whatever
privacy in trusts
and the
they want to be anonymous
so they can't have their name on as trustee
they get a third party to be the trustee
and that way when you do the search in the
files at the county
you can't find anything that that they own
well
i'm not going to get into it now but I'm not too hip
on anonymity in trusts
I don't think it works
but if you keep your name off the deed
as trustee
then whoever's name does appear as trustee
they will appear on the title in the search at the county
because the trustee technically holds
or owns the piece of property
Lee Phillips
talking about who owns property in the trust