Yes, putting land in a trust is allowed and the mechanics are straightforward: you draft a new deed transferring the property from your name to the trust, have it notarized, and record it with the county where the land sits. The harder part is picking the right kind of trust and cleaning up the tax, insurance, and mortgage details that follow. Get those wrong and the trust can cost you more than it saves.
Revocable or Irrevocable? Start Here
The first decision shapes everything else.
A revocable living trust leaves you in control. You can act as your own trustee, manage the land as you always have, change the terms, swap beneficiaries, or dissolve the trust entirely. The trade-off is that the IRS still treats the property as yours. It stays in your taxable estate, and creditors can still reach it. The main payoff is avoiding probate, which in some states is slow and expensive.
An irrevocable trust is a different animal. Once the land goes in, you no longer own it in any legal sense. You give up the right to take it back, redirect who benefits, or change how it’s managed. That loss of control is the point. Because the property is no longer yours, it generally falls outside your taxable estate and beyond the reach of your personal creditors. The property is pulled back into your estate only if you kept certain strings attached, like the right to live on the land or collect income from it for life.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2036 – Transfers With Retained Life Estate
If you want flexibility and probate avoidance, revocable. If you want the land out of your estate or shielded from creditors and you can live without control, irrevocable.
How the Transfer Actually Works
Before you deed anything, the trust itself has to exist. The trust agreement spells out the rules, names the trustee, and identifies the beneficiaries. It must be signed and finalized before land can move into it.
Pull out your current deed. The legal description on it, the precise boundary language identifying the parcel, has to be copied exactly onto the new deed. A small error in that description can cloud the title and become expensive to fix. It’s also worth running a fresh title search, even though you already own the land. Old liens, undischarged mortgages, unpaid taxes, or pending lawsuits tied to the property can surface later and become the trust’s problem, and fixing them is cheaper before the transfer than after.
The new deed names you as the current owner and the trust as the new owner. Identify the trust by its full formal name, something like “Jane Doe, Trustee of the Doe Family Revocable Trust, dated March 15, 2026.” Most attorneys use a quitclaim or grant deed for trust transfers, since you’re moving the property to yourself in a different legal capacity rather than selling it.
You sign the deed in front of a notary, who verifies your identity and affixes an official seal. Then you record it at the county recorder or register of deeds where the land is located. Filing fees generally run from roughly $10 to $100 for a standard deed, and some counties add transfer taxes on real estate conveyances, though many exempt transfers to your own revocable trust because no money changes hands and the beneficial owner is unchanged. Call the recorder’s office before filing so nothing surprises you. Once recorded, the transfer is public record and the trust legally owns the land.
What Happens to the Mortgage
If the land has a mortgage, moving it into a trust raises the due-on-sale clause, the provision that lets a lender demand full repayment when property changes hands. For revocable living trusts, federal law removes that risk. The Garn-St Germain Act prohibits lenders from enforcing a due-on-sale clause when property securing a residential loan (fewer than five dwelling units) is transferred to a trust in which the borrower remains a beneficiary.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 12 USC 1701j-3 – Preemption of Due-on-Sale Prohibitions Notify your lender after the transfer so their records match. For irrevocable trusts the protection may not apply if you’re no longer a beneficiary, so ask the lender first.
Refinancing later can be awkward. Many lenders won’t close a refinance while the property sits in a trust, so the property is usually deeded temporarily back into your individual name for the closing and then deeded back into the trust afterward. It’s routine work, but plan on a couple of extra steps and small recording fees.
Property Tax and Homestead Traps
Moving land into a revocable trust where you remain the beneficial owner generally doesn’t trigger a property tax reassessment, because the ownership interest hasn’t meaningfully changed. Still, file whatever change-of-ownership form your local assessor requires and make clear the transfer is to your own trust. Skip that step and the assessor may treat it as a sale and reassess.
Homestead exemptions need extra care. Most states let property in a revocable trust keep the exemption, but only if the trust documents preserve your beneficial interest and right to occupy the property. Some assessors want specific language in the deed or trust confirming that the grantor retains a life interest. Check locally before you record. Losing a homestead exemption over a paperwork oversight can add hundreds or thousands of dollars a year to your tax bill.
Federal Tax Consequences
Estate Tax
For revocable trusts, the answer is simple: the land stays in your taxable estate because you kept control. No estate tax benefit, but no penalty compared to owning it outright.
Irrevocable trusts can remove the land from your estate entirely, which matters if your total assets approach the federal estate tax exemption. For 2026 that exemption is $15,000,000 per person.3Internal Revenue Service. What’s New – Estate and Gift Tax Most people are well below that. For those who aren’t, moving appreciated land into an irrevocable trust during life can keep its value out of the estate tax calculation. The catch is that the exclusion holds only if you genuinely gave up control. Retain the right to live on the land, collect rent, or decide who benefits and the IRS pulls it back into your estate as though the transfer never happened.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2036 – Transfers With Retained Life Estate
Gift Tax
Transferring land to a revocable trust isn’t a taxable gift, because you can take it back. Transferring land to an irrevocable trust is a completed gift equal to the property’s fair market value, minus any interest you retained.4eCFR. 26 CFR 25.2511-1 – Transfers in General
When the gift’s value exceeds the 2026 annual exclusion of $19,000 per recipient, you have to file IRS Form 709.3Internal Revenue Service. What’s New – Estate and Gift Tax Land almost always exceeds that, so plan on filing. You won’t necessarily owe gift tax, since amounts above the annual exclusion just reduce your lifetime estate tax exemption, but the reporting is mandatory. One more wrinkle: the annual exclusion only applies to gifts of a “present interest,” meaning the recipient can use or benefit from the gift right away.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2503 – Taxable Gifts Many irrevocable trust transfers create future interests, like a remainder that doesn’t kick in until someone dies, and future interests don’t qualify for the annual exclusion at all, so the full value may need to be reported regardless of the $19,000 threshold.6Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 709
Step-Up in Basis
When you die, property passing through your estate typically gets its tax basis reset to fair market value at the date of death. That step-up can save your heirs enormously in capital gains tax on appreciated land. Property held in a revocable trust qualifies, because the tax code specifically treats revocable trust property as acquired from the decedent.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1014 – Basis of Property Acquired From a Decedent
Land in an irrevocable trust may not receive the step-up. Because you gave up ownership during your lifetime, the property generally isn’t part of your estate for basis purposes unless the trust was structured to trigger estate inclusion. That’s a real trade-off. You might save estate tax by moving land out of your estate, but your beneficiaries could face a much larger capital gains bill when they sell. Anyone using an irrevocable trust for appreciated land needs to weigh both sides.
Update Your Insurance
Once the trust owns the land, the legal owner (the trust) no longer matches the named insured on your homeowners policy (you). Insurance companies can and do use that mismatch to contest claims. Call your agent right after recording the deed and add the trust as an additional named insured on every policy covering the property, including landlord or earthquake coverage where relevant. The trust’s name on the policy has to match the name on the deed exactly. The change is usually free; skipping it can leave you exposed at the worst possible time.
Title insurance deserves the same attention. Your existing owner’s policy may not automatically cover the trust as the new owner, since many standard policies don’t contemplate voluntary transfers, even to your own revocable trust. Ask the title insurer for an endorsement naming the trust as an additional insured. These endorsements are usually inexpensive, and without one you may find a gap in coverage right when you need it.
Medicaid Timing
Some people transfer land into an irrevocable trust to reduce countable assets for Medicaid, particularly for long-term care. The logic works: if the trust owns the land and you can’t take it back, it shouldn’t count as yours. But federal law imposes a 60-month look-back. When you apply for Medicaid, officials review the previous five years of financial history for assets transferred for less than fair market value.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1396p – Liens, Adjustments and Recoveries Deeding land into an irrevocable trust without payment qualifies. If the transfer falls inside that window, Medicaid can impose a penalty period during which you’re ineligible for benefits and must pay for care out of pocket. The penalty length depends on the value of the transferred asset and varies by state.
Timing is everything. A transfer made six years before you need Medicaid is outside the look-back window. A transfer made three years before is not. Waiting too long to plan can render the whole approach useless.
Revocable trusts provide no Medicaid benefit at all. Because you can revoke the trust and reclaim the assets, Medicaid counts everything in it as yours.