At a regional level, this analysis reveals a clear structural conclusion: Latin American legal systems, predominantly civil-law jurisdictions, do not recognize the Anglo-American trust as a legal person, nor as a direct registered owner of real property. Consequently, the direct transfer of real estate to a U.S. trust is not legally viable in most jurisdictions, with limited exceptions (such as Belize).
In response to this constraint, legal practice has developed a set of indirect structuring mechanisms, principally:
Civil-law jurisdictions (Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, among others): the trust is not recognized. The principle of lex rei sitae applies strictly, subjecting real property to local law. Structural restrictions compel the use of intermediate vehicles, and forced heirship rules typically limit the settlor's dispositive freedom.
Common-law, hybrid, or offshore jurisdictions (e.g., Belize, the Cayman Islands, Panama): these permit greater flexibility, including — in some cases — direct title by foreign trusts. They offer meaningful tax advantages (absence of estate or inheritance taxes) and align more closely, on a functional basis, with Anglo-American estate planning structures.
Among the study's key findings is that structuring Latin American real estate within a U.S. estate planning framework necessarily requires a hybrid, jurisdiction-specific approach, in which the trust operates as a layer of economic control while legal title is channeled through locally recognized vehicles.
As such, the use of local companies controlled by the trust might be an optional choice, yet it is to be considered that costs for incorporation of local companies in LATAM may be much higher than in the US, severely affecting such strategy.
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