?? Making a Trust for Class III

[m*o*a]

Does anyone know if the living trust that legalzoom.com does will work for the trust requirements?

Thx,
Mike

[dogtired]

I would check with some of the local Class 3 dealers and see if they have a source...

[Circuits]

Most of my customers who have used trusts, have used Quicken Willmaker, and had no problems so far.

My personal preference would be to use a local, gun-friendly, Colorado attorney.

[Mick-Boy]

I did mine several year ago. Because of the amount of money and time that NFA items represent and the possible penalties for playing fast and loose I decided to get an attorney to write mine. I contacted the guy who runs the guntrustlawyer blog and he put me in touch with an attorney in Colorado (info below). The local attorney wrote the trust up for me and answered all my questions about keeping everything above board and legal. The trust ended up costing $600 all told.

Michael Sabbeth
4600 S. Ulster ST.
Suite 700
Denver, CO 80237
P: 303 - 846 - 3060

Hope that helps a bit.

[rtr]

This is one of those perennial questions. Yes using an automatically generated (Quicken, etc.) trust will get your paperwork past the ATF. The real test of a trust IMO is what happens if you die. If you die and your trust that owns NFA stuff is poorly written then bad things could happen (like your wife, son, etc. end up illegally posessing NFA items). A trust should be a part of your total estate plan, therefore it behooves you to have a competent attorney draw it up for you.

[Graves]

Damn Mick, that's a helluva deal. The quotes I got were normally double.

[Mick-Boy]

Yeah the first few lawyers I tried cold calling either didn't know what I was talking about or they DID and wanted in the neighborhood of $2k. The research I did lead me to believe it should be doable for under $1k. As I understood it after talking to Mr. Sabbeth, Mr. Goldman (runs guntrustlawyer) sent Mr. Sabbeth the trust that he uses in Florida. Mr. Sabbeth adjusted it to meet Colorado requirements and I was good to go. This trust is written specifically for NFA items and not for things like houses or cars. I guess there are some issues with legalese for NFA trust because a trust is supposed to protect assets and someone could make an argument that the mere use of NFA items lowers their value.

I don't know what arrangement they worked out between them but I got what I was after in a short amount of time (took about a week if I remember correctly) for a price I was willing to pay.

I found Mr. Goldman to be very friendly and willing to answer general NFA questions. Mr. Sabbeth was less knowledgeable on NFA issues but well versed in Trusts. After speaking to them both I was very clear on how to go about what I wanted to do.