Since the beginning of the year, I have been inundated with clients asking me to assist them with the process of moving individually-owned items into their trusts. The good news is that, with the updates the ATF made in January, this can now be done in eForms for the majority of cases.
However, that doesn’t make it any less of a bureaucratic and frustrating process. Exacerbating the issue, some retailers are mistakenly recommending individual filings for NFA items due to mythical faster processing times even when the buyer already has a trust. This is NOT the case with the trusts the ATF considers ‘standardized’ such as mine and doing so only adds time and cost for you with no benefits.
I cannot stress enough how much I encourage you to not take this approach no matter how much a retailer might encourage it!
Acquiring an item individually and subsequently transferring it into a trust is not a simple process. It requires re-doing the entire eForms 4 process and can delay your long-term protection, sharing, and compliance goals by weeks, or even longer. In addition, if you are not familiar with eForms and have the necessary digital files at hand then it quickly becomes time-consuming and frustrating.
It also can cost you money as well as time. My office charges a $100 processing fee per item to facilitate these after-the-fact transfers to account for the significant investment in time it takes to help you gather the necessary documents and file them.
Some industry providers, such as Silencer Shop, have even recently discontinued this specific transfer service due to high demand. While I am still doing said transfers for my clients, lead-times are increasing due to the sheer number of requests and I cannot guarantee how quickly I will be able to process them.
For all these reasons, please, please, file under your trust from the outset to ensure seamless protection and avoid unnecessary administrative costs and delays.
