I was just looking at a GIS map yesterday for my area and noticed that nearly every field was owned by an LLC and/or trust. Didn't think much of it at the time until I read this.
It’s a no brainer if you have a couple thousand dollars to spare for an estate lawyer to do some estate planning and spare your heirs probate court.
Plus in the states and wealth levels that many people on this website have, it is also a no brainer to save on taxes.
What I keep hearing from experienced estate attorneys is that California probate court is onerous and worth a lot of effort to avoid, but other state's have reasonable probate; it might still be worth it to avoid probate, but it's not such a big deal. OTOH, dealing with assets in a revocable trust can be a PITA while you're still alive and may not give much benefit while you're living either. If you're not in California, it's worth taking stock of the situation before you use California biased advice.
Having an estate in trust may not actually save on taxes either. Yes, you'll avoid probate fees in California, which is significant. But your estate will still pay estate tax. Otherwise, if an irrevocable trust holds the assets, it pays the taxes, and trusts have very abbreviated brackets; your heirs might well pay less income tax holding the property themselves.
When your heirs/beneficiaries die and their heirs become the new beneficiary, that's not subject to estate tax, which is great, but as a result it doesn't get a step up in basis. If the trust is large relative to the estate tax exemption, it's beneficial to not pay estate tax; if not, it's more beneficial to get a step up in basis.
Certainly, in some situations, trusts are more tax efficient, but you have to actually look at your situation to see. Default everyone should have a trust assumptions add a lot of senseless confusion and delay to the people who don't actually get a benefit from it. There are asset protection benefits from trusts as well, and it's reasonable to consider those depending on the situation as well.
Holding a farm in a trust or llc makes a lot of sense to me, because it makes it easier to split ownership without dividing the farm.
IANAL but to be clear, I'm pretty sure that CA does not have an estate tax. And the federal estate tax limit was just reaffirmed (BBB) at the prior threshold.