The liability protection of the trust depends on control.
Family trust usually set up as revocable trust when the property owners are alive. Revocable trust means the property owner has full control of the trust and the underlying asset. This means the family trust has no liability protection at all. It is treated as the property owner directly own those properties.
In order for the trust to have liability protection, the property owner has to give the control of the trust to someone else, i.e. losing control of the trust. The property owner would put the assets into the trust, assign trustees being a bank or children, they would lose control, this is the only way the trust would protect the property owner from liability.
Asset protection is a big subject. There is no shortcuts.
