To move real estate into a land trust, you draft a private trust agreement, prepare a new deed transferring title from your name to the trustee, sign and record that deed at the county, and then notify your mortgage lender and update your insurance. For a single property, the whole sequence usually wraps up within a few weeks. The post-recording steps are where most people get tripped up, so plan for them before you record, not after.
Draft the Trust Agreement
The trust agreement is a private contract. It never gets recorded with the county, and that privacy is most of the point. It names three parties: you as the grantor (the person creating the trust), a trustee (whose name will appear on the public deed), and a beneficiary (who actually controls the property). In most land trusts, you are both grantor and beneficiary.
Spell out the trustee’s authority clearly. The trustee can sign documents, manage the property, or sell it, but only when you direct them in writing. Confirm that you, as beneficiary, keep the right to occupy the property, collect rent, and make every decision about it. Build in a provision for a successor trustee if the original trustee dies, becomes incapacitated, or resigns.
Name a successor beneficiary too. This is where the probate-avoidance benefit actually lives. When you die, the successor beneficiary steps into your role automatically under the terms of the agreement, and because the agreement is private, that transfer happens outside the court system. Skip this designation and you lose one of the main reasons for using a land trust in the first place.
Only about six states have specific land trust statutes. Most other states (Louisiana aside) allow land trusts under general trust law. If your state has no dedicated land trust statute, it’s worth having an attorney confirm how your jurisdiction will treat the beneficiary’s interest before you sign anything.
Prepare the New Deed
Once the trust agreement is signed, you need a new deed to move legal title from your name into the trustee’s name. For a transfer into your own trust, a quitclaim deed is the standard choice. It transfers whatever interest you have in the property without making warranties about the title’s history. Since no sale is happening and you are effectively transferring the property to yourself as beneficiary, the warranty protections of a grant deed are unnecessary.
The deed must include your full legal name as grantor, the trustee identified in that role (for example, “Jane Doe, as Trustee of the 456 Oak Avenue Land Trust, dated January 15, 2026”), and the property’s full legal description. Copy the legal description exactly from your current deed or title policy. A minor discrepancy can get the deed rejected at recording or create a title cloud later.
How you name the trust matters for privacy. If the trust name contains the property address, anyone pulling the recorded deed can connect the trust to that specific property. Many people use a neutral name instead, like a number or an unrelated phrase, so the public deed reveals as little as possible about who benefits.
Sign, Notarize, and Record
Sign the deed in front of a notary public. The notary verifies your identity, witnesses the signature, and attaches the seal that makes the deed eligible for recording. Notary fees are typically modest and vary by state.
Take the notarized deed to the county recorder’s office (sometimes called the clerk’s office or register of deeds) in the county where the property sits. Recording makes the transfer part of the public record. You will pay a recording fee that varies by county, and some counties also require supplemental forms at the time of recording. The office will return the original stamped document to you after processing, which can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks depending on the backlog.
Keep the recorded deed with the trust agreement in a secure location. The trust agreement is your proof of beneficial ownership. The recorded deed is proof that legal title moved to the trustee. Losing either creates headaches down the line.
Handle Transfer Tax and Property Tax Issues
Many jurisdictions charge a documentary transfer tax when real estate changes hands, but most exempt transfers into a revocable trust where the grantor stays the beneficiary. The reasoning is that beneficial ownership has not actually changed. You may need to file an exemption claim or affidavit with the county to avoid the charge. Call your county recorder’s office before you record so you know which form to submit alongside the deed.
The same principle generally applies to property tax reassessment. Transferring property into your own revocable trust does not typically trigger reassessment, because the beneficial owner has not changed. If your county sends a change-of-ownership questionnaire after you record, fill it out promptly. Ignoring it can produce an unnecessary reassessment that you then have to fight to reverse.
If you have a homestead exemption on the property, confirm the transfer will not disrupt it. In most places, the exemption survives as long as the trust is revocable, you created it, you funded it, and the agreement confirms your right to occupy the property. A quick call to the county assessor before recording can prevent surprises on your next tax bill.
Notify Your Mortgage Lender
If you have a mortgage, transferring title out of your name technically triggers the due-on-sale clause found in nearly every mortgage contract. That clause lets the lender demand full repayment when the property is sold or transferred. Federal law prevents your lender from enforcing it on a land trust transfer, as long as two conditions hold: you remain a beneficiary of the trust, and the transfer does not change who has the right to occupy the property.
This protection comes from the Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act and applies to residential properties with fewer than five dwelling units. The statute specifically exempts “a transfer into an inter vivos trust in which the borrower is and remains a beneficiary and which does not relate to a transfer of rights of occupancy in the property.”1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 12 USC 1701j-3 Preemption of Due-on-Sale Prohibitions A standard land trust where you are the sole beneficiary and continue living in the property fits squarely inside this exemption.
Even with that protection, notify the lender. Some lenders have internal procedures for trust transfers and will ask for a copy of the trust’s first page or a certificate of trust. A heads-up avoids confusion if the lender later notices the title change during a routine audit. If a lender pushes back or threatens to call the loan, citing the Garn-St Germain exemption by name usually resolves it.
Update Insurance and Title Coverage
Homeowner’s Insurance
Your homeowner’s policy was issued to you as the owner. Once the trustee holds legal title, a gap opens between who the policy covers and who actually owns the property. File a claim without updating the policy and the insurer can deny it on the ground that the named insured no longer has an insurable interest.
Contact the insurer and ask to add the trust as either a named insured or an additional insured. Some carriers prefer one approach, and the distinction matters. Named insured status gives the trust primary coverage; additional insured extends existing coverage to the trust as a secondary party. Either way, make sure both you personally and the trust are covered. This is usually a quick endorsement that costs little or nothing.
Title Insurance
Title insurance is where people get caught off guard. Many older policies do not cover voluntary transfers, so moving the property into a trust can quietly cancel the coverage you paid for. Policies issued under the ALTA Owner’s Policy (1970, 1987, 1990, and 1992 versions) and the CLTA Standard Coverage Policy (1990) generally do not extend protection to a new owner after a voluntary transfer. If you hold one of these, your title insurance may be void the moment you record the trust deed.
Newer policies, particularly the CLTA/ALTA Homeowner’s Policy issued from 1998 onward, typically do cover transfers to a revocable trust and extend coverage to trustees and successor trustees. If yours falls into this category, recording the deed should not affect your coverage.
Check your policy type before you record, not after. If your policy does not cover trust transfers, you have options: add an endorsement to the existing policy (often $50 to $150), request expanded coverage that includes trustees and successor trustees, or purchase a new policy. The endorsement is almost always the cheapest route.
Tax Reporting After the Transfer
A revocable land trust where you are the grantor and beneficiary is a “grantor trust” for federal tax purposes. The IRS treats the trust’s income as your income. You report rental income, property tax deductions, and mortgage interest on your personal return exactly as you did before the transfer. The trust itself is essentially invisible to the IRS.
You do not need a separate Employer Identification Number for a revocable grantor trust. You can keep using your Social Security number for tax purposes tied to the property. If the trust has only one grantor, the IRS offers optional filing methods that let you skip a separate Form 1041 trust return entirely.2Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1041 and Schedules A, B, G, J, and K-1 (2025) Nothing about your tax filing should change in a meaningful way after the transfer.
What a Land Trust Will Not Do
Land trusts are useful for privacy and probate avoidance, but they get oversold as asset protection. A land trust does not shield property from your creditors. If a creditor obtains a judgment against you, a court can order the trustee to reveal your identity as beneficiary. The trust makes it harder for someone to casually discover you own a particular property, but it does not make the property untouchable once a lawsuit is filed and discovery begins.
The privacy itself has limits. The agreement stays private, so no one browsing public records sees your name as the beneficial owner. A judge can still compel disclosure through a subpoena or court order in litigation. The privacy keeps out casual searchers and opportunistic plaintiffs. It will not hold up against a determined creditor with a valid legal claim.