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What Is Asset Protection?
It is a well known axiom that “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” When it comes to "asset protection," this statement rings especially true. We'll bet you didn’t know that during their lifetime, the average person will spend more than 90,000 hours working to provide for his or her family and to accumulate wealth. Yet during this 45 year period of time, this same person will spend less than 3 hours to plan and take steps to protect his or her assets.
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Simply put, asset protection is the process of lawfully, intelligently and ethically structuring the ownership, management and control of personal and business assets to safeguard them from potential future risk. Asset protection is not a plan based on secrecy to hide assets, defraud creditors, launder money or to evade taxes.
An effective asset protection strategy involves two things:
1. To avoid claims and lawsuits in the first place by helping clients understand and protect themselves from liability and to avoid liability issues (our "Private Counsel Services");
2. To insulate clients’ personal and business interests and assets so that if a claim or lawsuit is filed, it will be difficult, impossible or economically impracticable for a creditor to pursue the claim.
It is an ongoing process based upon legally establishing, coordinating and then transferring your assets into one or more properly formed, managed and controlled legal structures or entities such as corporations, limited liability companies, family limited partnerships and trusts with the goal of minimizing your exposure from creditor claims and lawsuits while at the same time, maximizing the protection of your assets. It takes into consideration local, national and international issues involving conflict of laws, full faith and credit, jurisdiction and tax, and using concepts of layering and integration of entities, provides you and your family with the very best protection possible.
What Is The Difference Between Estate Planning and Asset Protection?
The two go hand in hand. A properly designed and implemented estate plan will, at the time of your death, facilitate the transfer of your wealth to your loved ones and minimize, or eliminate, estate death taxes. As indicated above, in addition to protecting your assets and providing for your beneficiaries after your death, an asset protection plan will also offer you protection of your assets while you are alive.
A recent string of State and Federal court cases make it clear that asset protection should not be conducted in its own name. Rather than assisting clients with engaging in the transfer of assets in a fashion which may be interpreted as an attempt to protect assets from either known or unknown future creditors, we believe the better practice is to approach asset protection goals with solid business and estate planning considerations placed first, which incidentally provide a client with backend asset protection benefits. A plan which fits into your “life story” and which will make good sense to a judge or jury.