Florida Land Trust vs Irrevocable Trust: Privacy Is Not Protection

Dmitri's Six Condos: A Common Miami Setup

Dmitri is a composite client, not a real person, but his situation reflects something I see often in Miami-Dade real estate circles. At 48, he had built a tidy portfolio of six rental condos over about fifteen years. A property manager friend told him to put each unit into a land trust for privacy, and Dmitri did exactly that. He assumed, reasonably enough given how the idea was pitched to him, that the land trust would also protect his properties if a tenant or a visitor ever sued him.

It would not have. A Florida land trust, authorized under F.S. 689.071, is a title-holding arrangement. A trustee holds legal title and appears on the recorded deed, while Dmitri, as the beneficiary, held what the statute treats as personal property, his beneficial interest under a private trust agreement that never has to be filed anywhere. That structure is genuinely useful for keeping his name off public deed searches and for making a future transfer simple. It does nothing, by itself, to keep a judgment creditor away from the underlying condo.

What a Florida Land Trust Actually Does

Under Chapter 689 of the Florida Statutes, a land trust separates legal title from beneficial ownership. The practical effects are real and worth understanding on their own terms:

• Privacy: The trustee's name, not the beneficiary's, appears on the recorded deed and in most public property records.
• Ease of transfer: Because the beneficial interest is personal property rather than real property, transferring ownership can often happen through an assignment of beneficial interest rather than a new deed and the associated documentary stamp cost under F.S. 201.02.
• Some insulation from a lien tied to the beneficiary personally: Because the beneficial interest is classified as personal property, a judgment lien recorded against the beneficiary's real property does not automatically attach to that interest the way it would attach to a deeded parcel.

What a land trust does not do is stand between Dmitri and a lawsuit arising from the property itself. If a tenant is injured on the premises and sues, the trustee holding title and the beneficiary behind the curtain can both end up named, and the asset inside the trust, the condo, remains exposed to a judgment tied to that property.

Why an LLC, Not a Land Trust, Carries the Liability Shield

For rental property, the tool that actually blocks a claim from reaching Dmitri's other assets, and blocks a claim against Dmitri personally from reaching the rental itself, is a properly formed and maintained limited liability company. This is where the phrase I use with clients matters: a land trust provides privacy without protection, and an LLC provides protection without privacy (since the LLC's registered agent and members can often be found through the Division of Corporations).

The strength of that LLC protection depends heavily on structure. A single-member LLC generally protects Dmitri from a claim arising inside the property (inside liability), but Florida law treats single-member LLCs less favorably when it comes to shielding the LLC's assets from a personal creditor of the owner (outside liability). A multi-member LLC, by contrast, can invoke Florida's charging order protection under F.S. 605.0503. That statute limits a personal judgment creditor of a member to a single remedy, a charging order, which is a court order redirecting distributions from the LLC to the creditor rather than letting the creditor seize the property or take over management. If the LLC's manager simply does not distribute profits, the creditor may be left waiting, which gives the debtor real negotiating leverage.

Where a True Irrevocable Trust Fits In

An irrevocable trust is one Dmitri could not simply revoke or amend on his own once created, which is precisely what lets it move an asset out of his estate for creditor or succession purposes. But Florida does not have a domestic asset protection trust statute. That means if Dmitri transferred a condo into an irrevocable trust and named himself as a beneficiary, that self-settled arrangement generally would not protect the asset from his own creditors. The protection only works when the person creating the trust is not also a beneficiary of it.

Where an irrevocable trust genuinely helps someone like Dmitri is on the succession side: naming his children as beneficiaries of a properly drafted trust, with a spendthrift provision under F.S. 736.0502, restricts creditors of those children from reaching trust assets or forcing a beneficiary to assign away their interest, subject to statutory exceptions. An irrevocable trust used this way is not a liability shield for Dmitri's rental business. It is a long-term ownership and transfer plan, and Chapter 736, the Florida Trust Code, allows real flexibility over time through nonjudicial settlement agreements, judicial modification, decanting under F.S. 736.04117, or a trust protector, so the plan does not have to be frozen in stone the day it is signed.

Dmitri's Restructure

After reviewing his goals, Dmitri's actual priorities separated into two different problems: keeping his personal exposure from a tenant lawsuit contained, and eventually passing the portfolio to his adult children without a courthouse probate process for six separate deeds. A single tool was not going to solve both.

The direction that fits a situation like his generally involves forming one or more multi-member LLCs to hold the condos (grouping properties sensibly rather than mixing high-risk and low-risk units together), keeping the LLC properly capitalized with adequate landlord insurance, maintaining real separateness between his personal finances and the LLC's, and then considering whether the LLC membership interests themselves, once liability is addressed, belong inside an irrevocable trust for eventual transfer to his children. A land trust can still play a supporting role for privacy on top of that LLC structure. What changed was Dmitri's understanding that the land trust he already had was never the piece doing the protective work, and every plan like this needs individual review of insurance coverage, financing terms, and family goals before anything is restructured.

Sources

• Alper Law, "Florida Land Trusts for Asset Protection and Privacy," April 21, 2026
• Alper Law, "Charging Order Protection for Florida LLCs: How § 605.0503 Works," April 17, 2026
• Alper Law, "Irrevocable Trusts as an Asset Protection Tool in Florida," August 2026
• Alper Law, "Using an LLC for Rental Property in Florida: Asset Protection and Structure," April 23, 2026
• Barnes Walker Law, "Land Trust Privacy Asset Protection | Legal Glossary," May 6, 2026
• Jimerson Birr Law, "Understanding the Florida Land Trust Act," July 1, 2026
• The Florida Bar, "The Irrevocable Trust in Florida," December 23, 2025

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice, nor does reading it create an attorney-client relationship. Florida estate, elder, probate, and real estate law are fact-specific and change over time. Consult a licensed Florida attorney about your individual circumstances. Arthur Simpson, Esq. is licensed to practice law in the State of Florida. Attorney advertising.