[quote=bearishgurl]edna_mode, almost everyone who has a living trust has it in their own name, i.e. “Gonzalez Family Trust.” They create the trust and then move all their assets into it, real property and otherwise. I have not seen a personal trust created that is not in the name of the trustee(s) but maybe this has been done.
I DO know of a couple of people I was doing asset searches on who took title to or transferred property they owned to fictitious names or an “LLC” they created solely to buy property under, obviously in attempt to avoid having a our clients’ judgement liens attach to it. However, this ownership is easily proven by a prevailing party in suit to a court to be a fraudulent transfer.
Sure, you can take title to real property under an entity you have created with the Secretary of State. But if this form of taking title is solely for the purpose of avoiding a judgment lien, then there is a high probability of it being found out and attached anyway, plus incurring court costs for yourself and the party you lost against in suit.
Pursuant to portions of CA Government Code section 6250 et. seq. (codified from Federal law), aka the “CA Public Records Act,” only certain individuals are entitled to have their property and property tax records blocked from public view as a matter of law by county recorders and assessors. In pertinent part, it states:
6254.21. (a) No state or local agency shall post the home address or telephone number of any elected or appointed official on the Internet without first obtaining the written permission of that individual.
(f) For purposes of this section, “elected or appointed official” includes, but is not limited to, all of the following:
(1) State constitutional officers.
(2) Members of the Legislature.
(3) Judges and court commissioners.
(4) District attorneys.
(5) Public defenders.
(6) Members of a city council.
(7) Members of a board of supervisors.
(8) Appointees of the Governor.
(9) Appointees of the Legislature.
(10) Mayors.
(11) City attorneys.
(12) Police chiefs and sheriffs.
(13) A public safety official, as defined in Section 6254.24.
(14) State administrative law judges.
(15) Federal judges and federal defenders.
(16) Members of the United States Congress and appointees of the President.
Practically speaking, if you walked into a CA county assessor or recorder’s office and asked to see records NOT shown on their computer system, absent a court order or search warrant, you would be denied.
I am not an attorney and this post does not constitute legal advice.[/quote]
I believe you can name the living trust whatever you like. However, when I converted things into a living trust, grant deed was also filled out with who the trustee(s) were (not sure why)…. So I have seen ABCXXX Living Trust, Dated (specific date)… The issue at hand though is that to remain truely anonymous, it would have to be done from the start. Strictly for the sake of remaining anonymous, I don’t think it works if you start with the property and transfer into a living trust. Because you (the person) is already recorded, and the transfer is recorded.. So someone really wanting to find out will put things together from the history of the grant deeds.
I have not figured out a way to remain anonymous, without hiding behind an LLC. Not sure how to do that, and it probably has to be done at the time at sales. (Anyone can comment on that?) Also, how does this work out with a loan? I can see it work out if it’s a personal loan from a relative or such, but not sure how banks loans would allow for this… (Don’t know).
But since it’s really too late anyway for me, I haven’t given it much thought thereafter…because like I said, I think it has to be done the first time at sales, otherwise there’s a public paper trail anyway. Maybe for the next RE purchase 🙂
..But to the original poster, yeah, I wouldn’t like piggie’s here snooping around my records either….You’d probably get a lot of crap like “you paid for what? Wow was there fraud, wow, how was this assessed this way, wow what’s the loan balance, wow something fishy going on with the loans….. Those damn (insert your favorite race card here), they’re taking over everything!!”, not to mention you’d probably get (free of charge)
a) 10+ different versions of a personalized rent versus buy calculation,
b) 10+ versions of why it would make more sense to buy in (insert your favorite area other than CarmelValley such as MM, Santee, Del Sur,RP,xxx) and send kid to private school versus buying in CV……
c) possible guest feature on (insert your favorite housing bubble blogspot)…
d) 40+ estimates of how much your home is is really worth after RE falls another (insert your favorite guessimate) percent….Regardless, you overpaid anyway 🙂
e) Multiple lectures from experts on what a big risk it was for you to purchase due to the the lack of your job security in your profession, which they found out from searching your linked-in/facebook/(name your other favorite social media) profile…..
🙂
(…and you wonder why I’m not a fan of social media…. )
