Laramie, Wyoming Real Estate: Taking Title as a Trust

In Wyoming, you have the choice of taking title of real property as a Trust.

The legal and tax implications of setting up a trust are complex and vary widely from state to state. Attorneys and tax experts should always be consulted on the subject of trust.*

That being said, the basic premise of a trust is the transfer of ownership to a third party to hold or manage for a beneficiary.

There are three main participants in a trust:

• The Trustor - the creator of the trust
• The Trustee - The party who holds legal title and is "entrusted" to carry out the purpose of the trust as defined by the Trustor
• The Beneficiary - The party who benefits from the trust.

Any of these parties may be a real person, or a legal entity, such as a corporation.

Real Estate can be owned under three kinds of trusts:

• A Living Trust- May be created during the owner's life time
• A Testamentary Trust- established by will after the owners death, usually to provide for the care of a related beneficiary who would be unable for some reason to manage assets on their own.(minors, for example)
  
• A Land Trust - Real estate is the only asset. The beneficiary and the trustee can be the same person. Some people establish land trusts for secrecy since many public records do not name the beneficiary of land trust

*Modern Real Estate Practice, Seventeenth Edition
by Fillmore W. Galaty, Wellington J. Allaway and Robert C. Kyle
2006 by Dearborne Financial Publishing, Inc., Chicago, Illinois

I have no idea how Trusts work in Wyoming. Fortunately, I don't have to know and you don't either! That's what you will pay a competent real estate attorney to do if you think a trust might work for you.

*This information is intended only to provide further clarification of real estate issues in Laramie, Wyoming. I am not an attorney. This article is not endorsed, approved or affiliated with Century 21 Real Estate Center, Inc. Any consumer with questions about the real estate process should always consult an attorney of their own.