Tuesday, March 11, 2014

The Importance Of Asset Protection Planning

By Jaclyn Hurley


In property protection, several legal techniques and statutory laws are used to protect assets of individuals and businesses from monetary judgements by financial institutions. Property protection planning, on the other hand, is used to protect property from creditors with strict observation of tax and concealment policies. It is through this program of asset protection planning that a person can be protected from huge debts that would be incurred from facing the creditors.

Some of the common techniques used in planning include;using a family partnership, IRA contribution maximization, using limited liability companies, moving funds to an irrevocable trust, or retitling various assets. An attorney should be hired to intervene in every phase of developing the plan. For instance, he/she should help in discussions of short and long term financial goals. This also involves helping the client in drafting a plan for all the assets.

Arguably, taking up the plan cannot be operational if there is a pending lawsuit. Otherwise, the court cannot defraud the creditors if there is a warrant for arrest. This implies that the plan should be prepared before the warrant is issued. For example, if a person attempts to evade the creditors by transferring the assets, the court is likely to reverse the transaction.

There three main goals used in this kind of program are; short term, long term and specific goals for estate planning. Assessing the short term and long term goals, for example, makes the person learn about several factors. These include; both future and current sources of income, amount of money required for retiring, as well as the money that needs to be allocated to the heirs in case of death.

The next step involves improvising a sound financial plan and reviewing all the available assets in order to protect them from creditors. In case they are not exempted from creditors, the client and attorney can opt for prepositioning them. Similarly, it is also used for the preposition of property that a person may be intending to acquire in the future.

The next step involves determining the net worth of both existing and future assets to be accumulated by the person. He/she would then use that information in developing a comprehensive estate plan for the management of the property. The plan is also used to address other social issues such as identifying the caretaker of the person in case of mental disorder. In addition, it is also used to address other issues like identifying the heir of the family and assets in case of sudden death.

Property protection programs are usually run with the aid of specific estate planning techniques. The main ones used for this purpose are family liability companies and irrevocable trusts. They aim at taking care of the family wealth as well as other beneficiaries.

It is recommended that the plan should be prepared after cross-examining the estate plan and all financial goals. This also involves ensuring that the plan can meet the requirements for positioning or pre-positioning the properties to be exempted from creditors. It is only then that negotiations can then be reached with the creditors. One should therefore take it if in need of protection from creditors.




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