What are the consequences of an improperly written trust?
That's a good question. Several possible consequences: 1) when you die, wrong person gets your stuff. 2) when you die, expensive legal fees for wife/kids to pay to undo a messy trust that just doesn't work.
Beyond that, I have some reservations about using a trust to bypass CLEO sign-off. These things haven't been thoroughly tested....yet, IMHO. What I mean is that it is possible for local governments, state governments or even the fed gov to invalidate these trusts if the sole purpose is to get around CLEO sign-off to possess things that you wouldn't otherwise be able to possess.
I would always opt to have Class III item registered to me as an individual, if at all possible. But, if this is simply impossible, I'd take the risk of using a Trust on things like suppressors. Suppressors arae relatively cheap. I'd think twice about using one on things like 10K+ machineguns, unless you have the skills, time, money and energy to defend the trust at some future date as having a purpose other than to just thwart the CLEO sign-off.
I know that there will be a bunch of folks here, lawyers included, that will disagree with me based on the premise that: "I did it and it's been no problem at all". If that's their premise, they are missing the bigger picture here. More and more people are using things to get around the CLEO sign-off....how long do you think it will be before the non-signing CLEO's make a stink about this and the Antis do something about it?