Rather than worrying about a person taking control of your Florida land trust as a trustee, you can use an LLC to perform the same service. Better yet, it can be an LLC that you created. This leaves you with ultimate control of the belongings under trust while still maintaining a public distance from them. How can you do that? Let's get started.
How Does This Work?
Essentially, you're using your LLC as a separate entity from yourself for both tax and legal purposes. We realize that this is absolutely the case in all normal affairs to begin with, but it bears re-stating in this one. The fact that you own the company is of no matter. The LLC is a separate entity from you and can assume "ownership" via a trustee situation.
Whether or not this is the right choice for your particular trust is up to you. We do highly recommend consulting with a lawyer if it is an impending legal matter that you are concerned about, because they will be up to date on the most recent local problems that may arise from doing this (if there are any).
What If My LLC Has A Legal Problem?
If your LLC is only being a trustee for your property, it shouldn't matter. This is why you must spell out every single letter of your trust agreement throughout the document. Doing so will prepare you for any sort of legal encounter that you or your LLC may have in the future, be it near or far.
Ultimately, no one should be able to demand any sort of valuation through your LLC (for instance, in a work accident lawsuit) based on your personal belongings. Hence why the LLC is there in the first place: it's to protect you, right?
So even when acting as a trustee, anyone attempting to pursue litigation should still find these assets unreachable through legal means.
How Do I Do This?
Have a trust drawn up (or do it yourself, though we don't recommend this method whatsoever) in agreement between you and the LLC. So long as your members agree (if you have them), this is all that should need to be done. A representative of the LLC can sign the dotted line in the LLC's name and file the trust with the appropriate individuals. The trust will be maintained until otherwise noted on the documents or per local laws, whichever comes first.
What to Watch Out For?
Your exact wording will be adhered to. Again, we strongly recommend a lawyer in this case because it is likely that they will find an error or two that you simply haven't considered. They are the experts on all things law and should be consulted with such a serious movement in the ownership of expensive items, be they property or anything else.
In this case, you may wish for your registered agent to give the trust document a second look-over as well. This is to ensure that the registered agent has nothing to add or interject based on the exact day-to-day business of your LLC. In most cases, there wouldn't be anything to worry about. However, we can't possibly know the details of your business the way your registered agent does. Most registered agents will not charge for this and will have it finished very quickly.
If your registered agent does have editing suggestions, run them past the lawyer/writer and try to get them included.
Final Thoughts
Having an LLC be your trustee is an excellent way to do double-backing. That is, you may own the LLC but the LLC is a registered, separate entity from you and your personal finances. It also covers your business life in most essences of the term. Even if you are enduring a lawsuit, your assets cannot be touched because the LLC is the trustee. And the reverse is true, too: if the LLC is being sued or foreclosed upon, your assets cannot be seized because it is only the trustee.
This turns the ability to protect your assets into a loop. Though sometimes judges will dismiss this loop, it is so commonly done in the business world that it is usually overlooked or downright ignored. Unless you are protecting something deeply illegal, this is the quickest and easiest way to assure that no one can touch what is rightfully yours.