Yes, you can put land in a trust, and the mechanics are simple: draft a new deed transferring the property from your name to the trust’s name, sign it before a notary, and record it with the county. The harder questions come before and after that filing. Picking the wrong type of trust, or overlooking the mortgage, tax, insurance, and Medicaid consequences, can cost far more than the trust ever saves.
Pick the Type of Trust First
Before you touch a deed, decide whether the land goes into a revocable or irrevocable trust. The choice drives everything else.
A revocable living trust lets you keep full control. You can serve as your own trustee, manage the land however you want, change the terms, swap beneficiaries, or dissolve the whole arrangement. 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 can be slow and expensive depending on where you live.
An irrevocable trust works differently. Once the land goes in, you no longer own it in any legal sense. You give up the right to take it back, change how it’s managed, or redirect who benefits. That loss of control is the point. Because you no longer own the property, it generally falls outside your taxable estate and beyond the reach of your personal creditors. The property is only pulled back into your estate 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
What You Need Before You Transfer
The foundation is the trust agreement itself. It spells out the trust’s rules, names the trustee who will manage the property, and identifies the beneficiaries. The trust has to be signed and finalized before you can deed anything into it.
Pull your current deed too. The legal description on it, the precise boundary language that identifies the parcel, must be copied exactly onto the new transfer deed. Even a small error there can cloud the title and become expensive to fix later.
A fresh title search is worth the cost even though you already own the land. Outstanding liens, old mortgages that were never properly discharged, unpaid tax obligations, or pending lawsuits tied to the property can all surface later and become the trust’s problem. Catching them now is far cheaper than untangling them afterward, especially if the people who created the problem are no longer around to sign corrective documents.
How to Transfer the Land
Prepare a new deed naming 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 because you’re moving the property to yourself in a different legal capacity, not selling it to a stranger.
Sign the deed in front of a notary public. The notary verifies your identity, witnesses the signature, and affixes an official seal. That step is legally required to validate the deed.
Then record the deed at the county office where the land is located, usually called the County Recorder or Register of Deeds. You submit the original notarized deed and pay a filing fee. Fees vary by county but generally run from roughly $10 to $100 for a standard deed. Some jurisdictions also charge transfer taxes on real estate conveyances, though many exempt transfers to your own revocable trust because no money changes hands and the beneficial owner stays the same. Confirm with your county recorder’s office before filing.
Once recorded, the transfer becomes part of the public record and the trust legally owns the property.
What Happens to Your Mortgage
Moving mortgaged land into a trust raises a common worry: the due-on-sale clause. Most mortgages include one, letting the lender demand full repayment if the property changes hands. For revocable living trusts, federal law shuts that risk down. 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 where 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 stay current. For irrevocable trusts, the protection may not apply if you are no longer a beneficiary, so check with your lender before proceeding.
Refinancing is where trust-held land gets inconvenient. Many lenders won’t close a refinance while the property sits in a trust. The typical workaround is to deed the property out of the trust and back into your individual name, close the refinance, and deed it back into the trust. That adds a few steps and some modest recording fees, but real estate attorneys handle it regularly.
Property Taxes and Your Homestead Exemption
Transferring land into a revocable trust where you remain the beneficial owner generally does not trigger a property tax reassessment, because the ownership interest hasn’t meaningfully changed. Even so, file whatever change-of-ownership form your local tax assessor requires and make clear the transfer is to your own trust. Skip that step and you can accidentally flag the transfer as a sale, triggering a reassessment you didn’t need.
Homestead exemptions deserve extra attention. Most states allow property held in a revocable trust to keep its homestead exemption, but only if the trust documents preserve your beneficial interest and right to occupy the property. Some assessor’s offices want specific language in the deed or trust agreement confirming that the grantor retains a life interest. Check before you file. Losing a homestead exemption to a paperwork oversight can raise your tax bill by hundreds or thousands of dollars a year.
Federal Tax Consequences
Estate Tax
For revocable trusts, estate tax treatment is simple. The land stays in your taxable estate because you retained control. No advantage, no disadvantage compared to owning it outright.
Irrevocable trusts can remove property 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 fall well below that threshold. For those who don’t, moving appreciated land into an irrevocable trust during your lifetime can keep its value out of the estate tax calculation. The catch is the one already flagged: retain the right to live on the land, collect rent from it, 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 is not a taxable gift because you can take it back anytime. Transferring land to an irrevocable trust is different. The IRS treats it as 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
If the value exceeds the annual exclusion of $19,000 per recipient for 2026, you have to file IRS Form 709.3Internal Revenue Service. What’s New – Estate and Gift Tax Land almost always exceeds that threshold, so plan on filing. You won’t necessarily owe gift tax, because amounts above the annual exclusion simply reduce your lifetime estate tax exemption, but the reporting is mandatory. One 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 interest that doesn’t kick in until someone dies, and future interests don’t qualify for the annual exclusion at all. The full value of the transfer 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 that passes 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 on capital gains tax if the land has appreciated. Land 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 considered 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 on estate taxes by moving land out of your estate, and your beneficiaries could still face a much larger capital gains bill when they sell. Weigh both sides before signing anything.
Update Your Insurance and Title Coverage
Once the trust owns the property, there’s a mismatch between the legal owner (the trust) and the named insured on your homeowners policy (you, individually). Insurance companies can and do use that mismatch to contest claims. Call your agent right after recording the deed and ask to add the trust as an additional named insured on every policy covering the property, including landlord or earthquake coverage if applicable. The trust’s name on the policy needs to match the name on the deed exactly. The change typically costs nothing, but skipping it can leave you exposed at the worst possible time.
Title insurance is the same story. Your existing owner’s policy may not automatically cover the trust as the new owner. Many standard policies don’t contemplate voluntary transfers, even to your own revocable trust. Ask your title insurance company for an endorsement naming the trust as an additional insured. These endorsements are usually inexpensive. Request one before or right after recording the deed, so you don’t discover a coverage gap when you need the policy most.
If Medicaid Is the Reason You’re Doing This
Transferring land into an irrevocable trust is sometimes used to reduce countable assets for Medicaid eligibility, particularly for long-term care. The logic is straightforward: if the trust owns the land and you can’t take it back, it shouldn’t count as yours. But Medicaid’s rules include a significant trap.
Federal law imposes a 60-month look-back period. When you apply for Medicaid, officials review the previous five years of your financial history for any assets transferred for less than fair market value.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1396p – Liens, Adjustments and Recoveries Deeding land to an irrevocable trust without receiving payment qualifies. If the transfer falls within 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 matters enormously. A transfer made six years before you need Medicaid falls outside the look-back window. A transfer made three years before does not. The five-year clock is the single most important factor, and waiting too long to start planning can make the whole approach useless.
Revocable trusts offer no Medicaid benefit. Because you keep the power to revoke the trust and reclaim the assets, Medicaid counts everything in a revocable trust as yours.