Protect Your Assests or Lose It All
June 21, 2006 · Print This Article
In this day of lawsuits, if you’re a person of means (even moderate means) it would be well to protect yourself against a catastrophic loss.
It would be wonderful if our lives could be led without coming into conflict with others, but that is rare in life indeed. As for me… I have no desire to contemplate life on a mountaintop somewhere, so some degree of protection is the order of the day. One way to protect yourself is to get assets out of your name.
Now by this I’m not saying that the day after you get sued, you quick claim everything over to your girlfriend, wife, best friend, or whomever, that won’t work and the court will IMMEDIATELY see through this guise; then instead of protecting yourself, you’ll have the judge thinking you’re hiding things. And that my friend is not a good course to follow. However, if you plan in advance, then should an unfortunate court date ensue, you’ll be protected.
So how does one do this… give it all to goodwill? Well they are a worthy organization, but what we want is control. Give it away, but still keep control. One way of doing this a family corporation; basically you form a corporation, issue stock and divide it among your family, you keep the majority. This isn’t perfect, since you may have to pay a gift tax depending on the amount, and creditors can still go after your part. But… depending on the amount that is certainly better than giving away the whole enchilada. And… since creditors are aware of this, they might be willing to settle for a fraction of the total.
The above will ONLY work if you do it in advance, as stated earlier, you can’t do this the day you get sued… won’t work. Another benefit of the above family corporation is your estate. This is a legal way to protect your assets, both from creditors and from the grim reaper.
Nothing in life is free, or without risk; when you give the assets away, you have lost control over that portion, so use the master carpenter’s advice, measure twice, cut once, or our case think twice and gift once.
Is the above scenario the ONLY way of protecting yourself, no, there are other methods such as trusts. Which can be an excellent method of granting assets to your family, but keeping their hands OFF of them, till an agreed upon age, or future date. You can also have the assets returned to you (reversionary trust), but once returned, the creditors will come a calling.
What if you were to own something together with someone else, legalese “joint ownershipâ€. Well, we can read in the bible that …†there is nothing new under the sun…†so you can be sure the courts will look closely at who owns what and give creditors their due. Not to say this is a bad strategy, just one that needs to be looked at carefully.
What about this… you give the assets to your wife, brother, friend, significant other, but YOU retain the power of attorney. Yeah… that’s the ticket, right? Sorry, the courts will look closely as these records and quickly find out they are actually yours. Unless, that is… it is done well in advance. Of course this is an article about finances and not time travel, so do the best you can.
So you got sued, now what?
Well, don’t go all Tony Soprano on us, sell everything for cash and hide it in the backyard. While this might be tempting, the courts will ask what happened to the car, yacht, piano, etc. And if you don’t tell the truth, its jail time baby… and you don’t want that.
Plan ahead, diversify your assets, get what you can out of your name, play fair, and retire rich. That’s the plan for the day.
Technorati Tags: money, assets, offshore banking, retirement, lawsuit, asset protection, corporation, family, lawyers, court
Comments