Protecting Assets Against Creditors and Predators
It can take a lifetime to accumulate your wealth, but if your assets are not properly protected, it all could be lost in a moment. To avoid significant losses, it is important to have reliable and effective asset protection strategies, so you can continue to grow your wealth and achieve your financial objectives.
Why is Asset Protection Planning Important?
Asset protection planning is important to keep your property and money secure during your lifetime or the lifetime of a business. There are many reasons why asset protection planning is important including:
- The risk of incapacity: If you become incapacitated, you won’t be able to take care of your property/business or manage investments. Substantial losses could accrue unless someone trusted and reliable has been appointed to manage the assets.
- The risk of business losses: If you run your own business, you could find yourself faced with the risk of personal loss if the company goes bankrupt or if the company is sued. You don’t want your own personal home or other property to be lost because of business problems, so you should explore ways to ensure your own assets are kept safe.
- Losses due to estate tax: When you pass away and leave your assets to heirs, estate taxes could be assessed and significantly reduce the value of an inheritance.
- The risks presented by your heirs: You should protect your money and property even after you are gone. You can structure an inheritance so it will not be lost if heirs get divorced or go bankrupt. You can also opt for the creation of trusts, like special needs trusts or spendthrift trusts to meet the specific needs of beneficiaries who will inherit.
Strategies used in asset-protection planning include separate legal structures or arrangements, such as:
- Corporations
- Partnerships; and
- Trusts.
The structures that will work best for you depend, in large part, on the kinds of assets you own and the types of creditors most likely to pursue claims against you.
At Advivo we know your business, finances, structures better than anyone else, probably even you as the business owner, we can work with you to understand your potential and future objectives and then co-ordinate the development of an appropriate estate planning strategy and documentation with yours or specialist lawyers we deal with. We also proactively monitor this on an annual basis to ensure you are on track.
