Land Trust

Land Trust is the same as a Contract for Deed, the owner of the property simply sells you the property and holds the deed until you pay off the property. It helps people with low credit scores estblish a payment history that they can later take to the bank to obtain credit. Most banks need to see canceled checks over a two year period. Land Trust usually come with higher interest rates but lower down payments and if you have bad credit high interest rates are par for the course but it puts someone in a home that wouldn't be able to be in one otherwize. You can do a land trust through a title company and payments through escrow also to protect yourself. The seller usually has the buyer sign both the warranty deed and a quit claim deed that is held by the escrow company so that if you default on the loan the quit claim deed can be filed and the property is reverted back to the seller. Hope this helps.

To my understanding, using Land Trust is a way to protect your assets and yourself. They are not necessarily a contract for deed. If you have several pieces of property and you do not want to be exposed to lawsuits then you can put your property in a Land Trust. The beauty of a Land Trust is that your name never needs to appear on any deed or paperwork, so it makes it very difficult for someone to research your assets. You have a trustee, we'll call him John Doe, who appears on all of the real estate transaction paperwork. He is their to receive all of your property tax information and any other paperwork pertaining to your property (you might have to pay fee for him/her to do this). You become the beneficiary. This means that you hold all the equity in the property. Therefore, you indirectly own the property. The trustee cannot sell the property because he/she does not own the equity. The ideal set up when using a Land Trust is to have an LLC or Corporation. You purchase the property through the business enitity then immediately transfer it to a Land Trust. You want to choose a trustee you can trust and who has a different last name then you, so that there is no correlation between you and the trustee. When someone goes to look at what you own (researching for a lawsuit, perhaps it's a disgruntled tenant) it looks like your company purchased property and then transferred title to another individual. They have no idea that you are the beneficiary of the property and therefore own the equity. I don't know if DG has specific people they recommend, but I bought some books off ebay. Just type in Land Trust Real Estate under their search box. If I have given wrong information, someone else please correct me.

KimmyJ

You are correct and I am wrong I discribed a Land Contract I am so sorry it was 4 in the morning when I wrote that and I just finished a 12 hour shift, I should no better than to think at that hour LOL sorry for the misinformation, thanks for straightening that out.