Let's be clear about one thing, lenders make loans to individuals, not to the trust. Lenders will allow you to vest in a trust, even some more complicated trust set ups are permitted, but the loan application will have individuals listed as the borrowers.

TS

quote:

Originally posted by towershot:
Let's be clear about one thing, lenders make loans to individuals, not to the trust. Lenders will allow you to vest in a trust, even some more complicated trust set ups are permitted, but the loan application will have individuals listed as the borrowers.

TS

Yes, and this defeats the purpose of having a trust for anonymous reasons. Most counties you can now do a free online public records search with the persons name and it shows all of the mortgages they have and the mortgages show the property address. It adds a level to finding the property owner, but not much.

Here in Florida I see land owner ship with a revocable or non revocable trust in the persons name, or LLC's if the people want to be unknown. I think the trusts in the persons name make it easier to transfer the property(ies) when the person passes.

In Florida you can have a homestead exemption with the trust with your name on it (not sure for one without your name), you cannot with an LLC. Homestead exemption gives you a lot of property tax benefits.....basically it locks in the purchase price as your taxable price and your annual tax base (property value the tax is based on) cannot go up more than 3% a year, $50,000 taken off of the purchase price as your taxable base for the Homestead exemption. And, while someone could get a judgement against you etc. and can attach it to your home, they have to wait until you decide to sell it.

quote:

Originally posted by towershot:
Let's be clear about one thing, lenders make loans to individuals, not to the trust. Lenders will allow you to vest in a trust, even some more complicated trust set ups are permitted, but the loan application will have individuals listed as the borrowers.

TS

The loan applications are not public.

It used to be that residential lenders, almost always local S&Ls lending for their own portfolio, would be fine with these things. One way was to have the borrowers sign the note and have the trustee, or title holder execute the deed of trust. The deed would vest title in "Big Old Title Insurance Co. under Holding Agreement No. 1234" and the title company would execute the deed of trust to secure the note with some language about the arrangement.

Since virtually all residential lending now is for the secondary market and must strictly comply with every requirement imposed by the secondary market, Freddy, Fanny, etc., I doubt whether arrangements like this are possible.

Not long ago, I was helping someone handle the affairs of their grandmother who had the misfortune of taking out a reverse mortgage with Wells Fargo. Title to the property was held by a trust. Grandma died, as they often do, and we contacted WF to make arrangements to take care of the property, pay off the loan etc. The successor trustee and other beneficiaries wished to pay off the loan and continue ownership. WF took the position that it did not make loans to trusts, despite the fact that the note and deed of trust named the borrower as "Grandma's Living Trust of 1993." It could not give any information about the loan, the balance due, or anything else. They demanded copies of the trust, the death certificate and all information, over 100 pages, which could only be received by fax at a certain number. No other way. This was supplied, several times, actually. Their intransigence persisted and eventually WF filed foreclosure, adding several thousand dollars to the eventual payoff. Of course, this also added to the difficulty of arranging new financing and the urgency at the same time.

I do not intend to forget or forgive Wells Fargo for the ordeal it inflicted on these people, the most outrageous and despicable of the dozen or so appalling dealings with WF over my 40 year legal and business career.

What privacy are you trying to preserve?

It seems to me to be a sort of theoretical privacy.

You will live there. Your mail will be addressed to that place. Someone could follow you. There a multitude of other ways to find out where you live.

How many spies or paparazzi have found out where you live by looking up your name in the real property records? How many people would care to do it? The reality is that unless you are a public figure, no one really cares where you live.