SBR Living Trust??

Saw mention of "going the living trust route" for an SBR if your LEO won't sign the form. What's this about? Can this be used for any NFA-type weapons? Or just SBR?

TIA

A living trust is a "legal person" and can own NFA firearms. Any kind.

In law, there are "natural persons" and "legal persons". Natural persons are actual humans, legal persons are organizations that are treated by the law as persons separate from their members. For example, a natural person can vote, file lawsuits, be elected to office. etc. ABC Corporation can file lawsuits but can't vote or hold office.

In the NFA realm, a legal person can own NFA firearms just like a natural person can. For example, Colt produces the M16 machine gun, all the rifles in Colt's inventory are registered to the Colt corporation, not the CEO.

Since a legal person is not a human being, you can't arrest them so the local CLEO signoff is not required. In the past people incorporated to become legal persons, but the living trust is a much easier way of doing things, and has other advantages for your estate.

reeeeeeally...........veeeeddy eenterreshtink

I would go a little further, a person, trust, foundation, corp. are all entities or
in law they are called fictions. A People is a person with rights. You can see
the difference in a people and a person on any judges court docket. If you
committed a traffic offense and there was no harm done you will be tried as
a people, so they take the person to court that you agreed to create when you
signed up for your privilege to drive. The State of Ohio vs. JOHN DOE.
On the same docket you could be tried for shooting your neighbors dog with
a criminal offense and it will read The People of the State of Ohio vs. John Doe.
Same room, Same day, Same judge, 2 courts , 1 a person and 1 a people.
You do the same thing when you sign your taxes. The person that owes the
taxes is defined at the top in block letters and you make yourself liable for him
when you sign at the bottom. Same as a CEO signing a corp. check as John Doe,
CEO, he is not personally liable, but if he signs the same company check, John
Doe. he is now personally liable as he did it as a people and not an officer of
the corp. All legal bs but the gov. plays by rules, what you don't know can hurt
you. As far as guns, you better be on company business if you register that way
and are out with them. Also there are certain times, like in the case of felons,
where the law prohibits the person from possessing firearms, regardless of
ownership. m2c

I gave up on using a living trust for a SBR. It took forever to find a lawyer that would even take a look at it for me. I was told one thousand dollars minimum to set up the trust for a SBR. I already have a state issued CCW permit and I've never been in trouble with the law, yet the local sheriff wont sign for SBR's. Its pretty frustrating.

You can set up your own living trust with Quicken software:

http://www.nolo.com/product.cfm/objectID/6E9ED903-C9B4-42E0-9C2E235DD87A0A8A/309/?r=00150012303202000

Not as good as a custom drafted trust by a lawyer, but for a basic one that will pass legal muster it should suffice. I wouldn't start tranferring all your assets into it without getting a lawyer to at least review it with you, but for simple ownership of a few NFA firearms it should work OK.

So I've printed up my living trust documents from the quicken program. Under where it asks for the property of the trust, since I don't have any NFA items yet, I just put a vague description of " various firearms and firearm components". Now what?? Do I go get this thing notarized and made legit, and then have to rewrite it each time I get another gun or silencer to have it relisted as property of the trust? Man I really could use some legal advise. Anybody that I have seen post on this subject hasn't really done it. It's always " I know this guy..." kind of thing.

I have Quicken 2006 on my laptop but I can't find any Living Trust documents or wizard. Where do I look?

I used Quicken Willmaker 2007

There are many problems using quicken to create a trust for NFA purposes (http://www.floridaestateplanninglawyerblog.com/2008/10/using_quicken_to_prepare_a_tru.html). While it is possible to create a valid trust with Quicken it is also possible to create invalid trusts. I have written an article about many of the problems with quicken. http://www.floridaestateplanninglawyerblog.com/2008/10/using_quicken_to_prepare_a_tru.html

Although some are not specific to NFA purchases they are issues which should be considered.

A normal trust is not setup to deal with many of the unique issues of firearms ownership, transfer, and possession. This is specially true with items that are restricted by the NFA. Violations of the NFA by a trust or trustee are subject to enhanced penalties of $250,000 per occurance plus 10 years in jail.

If anyone has any questions about the use of trusts or more specifically NFA trusts for the purchase of Title II firearms or other items restricted by the NFA I would be happy to address them. If they are personal in nature a forum like this is not the appropriate place and you can contact me directly for questions of a personal nature though my website http://www.GunTrustLaywer.com/


David Goldman
Tel (904) 685-1200

http://www.JacksonvilleLawyer.pro/
http://www.GunTrustLawyer.com/
http://www.FloridaEstatePlanningLawyerBlog.com/

Has anybody had any luck using Quiken to make a living trust? If so what did you put down for propert of the trust when making the documents? If you don't yet own any nfa items, what do you put down? I just put down "various firearms and firearm parts" Will this suffice?

I have seen many people who have had success with Quicken. The language you propose has little to do with the success of the trust. It is important to realize that success for many is the ability to take possession of the items and not whether they or their family will be protected. One of the nice things about a NFA trust is that it can also be used for assault weapons with the expected legislative changes that are expected.

One very important point for those using quicken ( there are 18 outlined in the article posted above) is that quicken trusts terminate 120 hours after the settlors death. This means that the remaining trustees are no longer trustees and create a certain violation of the NFA and criminal liability for anyone who comes in possession of the items.

The ATF gives an exception to this for the PR of an individual to transfer the items to a heir within a reasonable amount of time, but there is no exception for business entities or trusts. A properly drafted trust for NFA / Firearms purchases will not have this problem and should resolve the issue by allowing it to be amended with the addition of future settlors to avoid the potential inability to transfer the items due to future legislative changes and provide enough time to accomplish a valid transfer if necessary.

If you are concerned about your trust's validity please review the hyperlink above and if you feel that your trust needs a legal you should contact a lawyer familiar with NFA trusts. NOTE many so called NFA trusts are not specifically created for Firearms but are simply standard revocable trusts which in most cases are unsuitable for NFA purchases, acquisitions, transfers or ownership over time.

David Goldman
http://www.GunTrustLawyer.com/

so but making a trust for your NFA weapons, you dont have to send papers into the ATF, get permission from your cleo, get fingerprinted and photographed like a criminal?

I assume you would need to engrave something on the lower receiver...

Engraving is only required in some Form 1 tax permits for the permission to manufacture a weapon and then the lower is already engraved (for all legal machine guns and pre-manufactured SBR, and SBS) generally if engraving is required it is only on the upper or barrel.

There are very specific requirement for this process

David Goldman
http://www.GunTrustLawyer.com