A state-appointed accountant has managed the $110 million United Effort Plan Trust for three years.

The UEP is the charitable arm of the FLDS church. The trust was formed in 1942, when church members turned over their property and other assets to the church to establish a communal order along the Utah/Arizona border where they had lived since the 1920s. Church leaders served as the trust's managers.

Judge Denise Lindberg on Thursday told Willie Jessop that under the newly revised trust managed by accountant Bruce Wisan, members can own their own homes, with some restrictions. She also sought to assure him there is no bias against the church in the management of the trust.

''I can honestly tell you I have no bias against FLDS. I don't have a bias for FLDS or for people who have been formerly FLDS. I truly have no view on that issue," Lindberg said. ''I believe that in the long term efforts toward where this trust is going that the most appropriate thing is ... to allow and create the opportunity for people to be able to own their property and be able to control it. I'm not going to put a religious test on that."

Jessop's court appearance was among the first for active members of the fundamentalist group, which has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years for its practice of polygamy in arranged marriages and its communal style of living.

Until now the FLDS have operated on a directive from imprisoned church leader Warren Jeffs to ''answer them nothing," believing the UEP takeover was part of a government campaign to persecute the FLDS for their religious beliefs.

Jessop said Lindberg's words were reassuring. Rumor and information from Wisan had led many among the FLDS to believe the judge wouldn't allow homeownership, he said.

''This was a very critical issue. We wanted to show up today to find out." Jessop said.

Wisan was awarded guardianship of the UEP in 2005 after state attorneys convinced a Utah judge that Jeffs and other church leaders had fleeced trust assets for their own benefit, including keeping the then-fugitive Jeffs on the run from criminal charges.

When tax payments lagged, or more recently when residents refused to sign occupancy agreements, Wisan and his lawyers have threatened evictions and gained the reluctant cooperation from some church members.

Last month, 57 individuals and the governments of the church-dominated towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz., hired three Salt Lake City attorneys to challenge Wisan's authority as the court-appointed head of the trust.