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Sounds like a trainwreck waiting to happen.
Doing this kind of thing without professional advice is akin to doing brain surgery on yourself.
IMO it's worth the money to pay a professional for this kind of thing.
Yep money well spent some will never get that though.Originally Posted by rtr
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." (Edmund Burke 1784)
I just compared the one I built to a guy who paid $2500 for his and mine is pretty much the same.
Don't see the point in paying a lawyer to write up something I can do on my own.
I consulted two lawyer friends and they didn't know much about them...
The whole thing is a gray area to begin with.
You can have as many lawyers that you want to look it over, but in the end we all know that the ATF will do what they want, when they want.
Having a lawyer look it over does not guarantee anything, It helps, but it does not guarantee .
Just like when the .22 akins accelerator was considered a bump firing device. Then some one asked the ATF to make a ruling on it. Then all the sudden, everyone that owned these once legal device, were now considered illegal. Even though it was not really a machince gun.
You are submitting these trusts to the ATF, they are looking at them, and they are approving the stamps for your trust. You got approval from the ATF for this.
The difference is, that the people who had these akins, never got an approval/Tax stamp from the ATF.
The ATF now requires that you send ALL of the trust documents so they can have their legal look them over before approval. Last year they just required you send the Cert. of Trust. Now you have to send the Dec. of Trust and the Property Schedule too.
On my latest stamp they contacted me because I didn't send the all of trust documents in. Once I sent them all, and they reviewed everything, I was good to go.
My problem with these non-professionally prepared trusts is that too many people using them may screw the rest of us eventually.
ATF has considered adding the CLEO signoff requirement to trusts and corporations. If more people abuse this part of the law (by drawing up trusts that are inadequate, or by forming corporations that have no legitimate purpose and adding their friends so that their friends can posess and use their NFA items) the ATF is MORE likely to add the CLEO signoff or do other things that are detrimental to the rest of us.
So for those of you forming a trust or corporation PLEASE consult a professional who is FAMILIAR with the NFA. One place to start is Mark Barnes, he is an attorney in DC who knows more about the NFA than anyone I know and who interacts with the ATF NFA branch regularly.
Yeah... that would REALLY suck because this is the reason most of us do this route anyway!
Yep just like the guy who knows nothing about a car except how to put gass in it, and how to drive it. He then puts his 10K honda civic next to a corvette and proclaims they are the same. After all they both have four wheels, a seat, and a steering wheel.
Oh and of course he will claim he saved 50K and has the same car............
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." (Edmund Burke 1784)
Maybe that's the reason you wanted a lawyer?Yep just like the guy who knows nothing about a car except how to put gass in it, and how to drive it. He then puts his 10K honda civic next to a corvette and proclaims they are the same. After all they both have four wheels, a seat, and a steering wheel.
Oh and of course he will claim he saved 50K and has the same car............
I found it very easy to build a trust, and I have consulted lawyers and there isn't any around that would be competent...so what is the point of paying someone ridiculous money if they haven't more of a clue that I do?
If I compare mine to the one a guy paid $2500 for and they are worded the same other than names and dates, I don't see how this could be wrong.
The car story is a bit off this subject.
It is very easy to build a trust, how appropriate that trust is for your needs is another question.I found it very easy to build a trust, and I have consulted lawyers and there isn't any around that would be competent...so what is the point of paying someone ridiculous money if they haven't more of a clue that I do?
If I compare mine to the one a guy paid $2500 for and they are worded the same other than names and dates, I don't see how this could be wrong.
You are correct that finding a lawyer who is knowledgeable of the NFA and able to create a trust that fits your needs (including using it to posess NFA items) is NOT easy. I talked to a lot of lawyers who said they didn't know anything about the NFA before I found one who does know about it. I have posted his name above and would recommend him to anyone looking to form a trust involving the NFA.
To compare the trust you made yourself to ONE other trust isn't really meaningful. I'm sure there are plenty of lawyers out there who will charge a lot of money for a trust that is a piece of crap. That doesn't mean that ALL lawyers will create a trust that is a piece of crap.
This situation is a classic case of you get what you pay for. HOWEVER, the potential impact of people writing their own trusts on the entire NFA community is real, and I would hope people will consider it when contemplating a trust for NFA items.
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