Joplin Area Real Estate Investor Association

Many people (especially some attorneys) do not believe there are any benefits to using a Land Trust to hold title to your real estate investments. After 40+ years of investing in Single Family Homes (and using Land Trusts for 35+ of those years) I have found that the practical (and often unforeseen) benefits of using a Land Trust are not always obvious.

Using a Land Trust to hold title to your investments is like using a gun to protect yourself. Your adversary must ask themselves, “Is the gun loaded?” If the gun is not loaded there may or may not be much protection. But if the gun IS loaded does your adversary really want to take you on? A smart adversary will move on to the next target.

In my Land Trust seminars and home study courses, I talk a lot about the many benefits of creatively using the Power of Direction (POD) in a Land Trust. This article will address some specific advantages of the POD and how you might use it for privacy and asset protection benefits.

The Power of Direction is the steel hand inside the velvet glove. The Director of your Land Trust (which might be you as the Beneficiary or someone else who is not the Beneficiary) holds all power over the Trustee. Remember, unlike many other types of trusts, the Land Trustee cannot
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Do you remember 1969? Probably not. But I remember the year 1969 very well. It was the year in which I purchased my first rental house. I was still in college and realized that I needed to break the cycle of poverty in my family.  

First, I decided to get more education than anyone else in my family. So, I went to college and majored in business. While studying in college, I realized that most people in America who became wealthy did it through investment in real estate. My initial interest was in apartment buildings, but since they took large amounts of down payment money (the “nothing down” concept had not been invented yet) I defaulted to the single-family home as my IDEAL investment vehicle. 

By the time I graduated from college I had acquired three rental houses and one small office building. After graduation, I continued acquiring rental houses and titling them in my name personally. One sunny morning I woke up and realized the potential risk I was creating by owning all these properties in my own name. These were the days before you could access the county recorder’s office online. But you could go down to the courthouse and walk into the recorder’s office to look up each owner of every property in town. Wow, was I stupid! 

I began to research different ways of holding a title to real estate. When I di
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