Trust with trustee question

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tslabaugh

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I searched everywhere and couldn't come across the answer. My form 3 took ages to get approved and I missed the deadline on my application. In Oklahoma, do you have to have trustees other than yourself on a trust?

Can I just do the trust with me and no other trustees and add them later? Just trying to make this less of a hassle to get all the fingerprinting and such done.
 

POKE1911

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You'd want to get legal advice on that one. The way my trust is written is that I can add or remove trustees at anytime. It would be crazy to assume that a trust can never be altered. That being said you may have to send in that stuff when you have those additions? \_(ツ)_/¯

Since you already missed the cut if there is not an urgent need to get it done ASAP I'd go ahead and get it all knocked out, so you don't have to worry about it. The NFA has so many gray areas that can land your ass in the clink that it's best to play be the letter of the law or have good legal advice if deviating at all, even for good reasons.
 

aestus

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A trust requires at least 2 trustees (Settlor acting as a trustee and 1 other person as a trustee.) It's not a trust if it's just you, by yourself.

There's tons of resources online that I recommend reading up on. If you are unwilling to read up yourself, then hire a lawyer. You can inadvertently find youself in a legal rut really fast (or your family and beneficiaries in the future).

There's a lot of online trusts you can pay for dirt cheap, but there's a reason they're cheap. They basically get you through the bare minimum to be "legal." They don't address any of the legal ramifications of things like what may happen if you were to pass away and your beneficiary is under the age of 18. Some online trusts are written so that you need any and all changes notarized, while some don't spell out any requirement for notaries for any changes. A lawyer can help craft one that is reasonably legally sound without being overly burdensome in terms of required notarization for every little change, ect.

Some online trusts aren't even legal at all and while the ATF may approve of some applications with these online formed trusts, it doesn't necessarily mean the trust has been correctly formed.
 

aestus

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I searched everywhere and couldn't come across the answer. My form 3 took ages to get approved and I missed the deadline on my application. In Oklahoma, do you have to have trustees other than yourself on a trust?

Can I just do the trust with me and no other trustees and add them later? Just trying to make this less of a hassle to get all the fingerprinting and such done.


Also to answer your question. Based on what I've read on the changes, there is a slight "loophole" where If you had already formed the trust with the NFA item in the trust's posession, then you could simply add more people to the trust without the fingerprinting. However, if the item wasn't already in the trust's possession and you wanted to add the item to the trust, that WOULD REQUIRE everyone on the trust to be fingerprinted. Fingerprints are required from everyone in the trust everytime the trust gains possession of a NFA item. Fingerprints are not required if you are simply adding more trustees to a trust that already has existing NFA items.

The fingerprints are needed when a new NFA item is being transferred to the trust. Since you did a Form 3, which is a dealer to dealer transfer, that means that a Form 4 transfer from the dealer to you needs to happen. Unfortunately, that means you and another trustee has to be printed. You need 1 other person to serve as another trustee and you 1 person to be a beneficiary, so that at least 3 people. Plus, you'll want to get it notarized and that requires 2 people who are not the beneficiaries or a trustee to serve as witnesses. So, you're probably talking a total of 5 people who need to be involved plus a notary.

The compromise is that once everyone has been fingerprinted, and if you don't go more than 1 or 2 years between NFA purchases and there has been no changes to the trust (in terms of adding or removing of trustees) you can simply tell the ATF that there has been no changes since the last fingerprints and you can purchase the NFA item without the need of finger prints again. However, once you change your trustees and/or you go for more than 2 years of a NFA purchase, you are required to get the prints again for everyone.

If you didn't beat the deadline, it's probably not worth it for you to do the trust, unless you really do want something to pass down the line in your family. Which if so, you'll definitely want to go the lawyer route to make sure you aren't jeopardizing your beneficiaries into potential legal trouble, or because you want to share your NFA items with family / friends and let these people gain posession for the items for use without your presence.
 
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Sanford

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A trust requires at least 2 trustees (Settlor acting as a trustee and 1 other person as a trustee.) It's not a trust if it's just you, by yourself.
IANAL but my trust was written by one and consists of myself as Settlor and Trustee, with no others at present (although others can be easily added and removed as needed/desired). While there is a successor trustee named he is not a current trustee and not a "responsible individual" as regards the trust as long as I'm alive so no photo/fingerprints are required for him. There are also named beneficiaries but they are also not "responsible individual(s)" as regards the trust. So I'll stick with my original answer to the question "In Oklahoma, do you have to have trustees other than yourself on a trust?" which was "No".
 

rawhide

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IANAL but my trust was written by one and consists of myself as Settlor and Trustee, with no others at present (although others can be easily added and removed as needed/desired). While there is a successor trustee named he is not a current trustee and not a "responsible individual" as regards the trust as long as I'm alive so no photo/fingerprints are required for him. There are also named beneficiaries but they are also not "responsible individual(s)" as regards the trust. So I'll stick with my original answer to the question "In Oklahoma, do you have to have trustees other than yourself on a trust?" which was "No".

This is my understanding of my trust as well. I have a beneficiary but currently am the only trustee.
 

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