Asset Protection – Planning Your Estate
Asset protection is a legal and strategic way to keep your assets safe and away from potential parties that may try to take advantage of you through lawsuits. The role of an estate planning attorney is to keep your assets safe. Parties who may try to disrupt your assets include:
- Judgments from lost law suits
- Business partners
- Ex- spouses
- Other creditors
- I.R.S
However, this process has a lot of grey area, as there are various ways as to how one can set up their estate in order to protect their assets. Luckily, Florida has excellent coverage for one’s personal assets. This is good for seniors who have retired in the state, those moving to the state to protect assets that are not protected in their state, and of course those who already live in Florida.
Find the right asset protection strategy
There are different types of estate planning trusts and other arrangements that people use to help protect their assets, including:
- The Limited Liability Company
- The Florida Homestead
- Annuities
- IRAs
- 401 (K)
- Federal Sponsored Retirement Plans
- Life Insurance
- Offshore Trusts and Corporations
- Florida Corporations
- Florida Irrevocable Trusts
- The Family Limited Partnership
As you can see, there are multiple options available to help protect your assets. Having several options is ideal, because not all of these asset protection strategies will be able to protect all of your assets. You may have to use a combination of estate planning trusts and other arrangements.
This can all be complicated for the average person; therefore, it is a good idea to seek the help of an estate planning attorney who is familiar with the current laws in Florida. A Florida attorney understands the process in our state and helps you plan your estate accordingly.
They know how to protect your assets from creditors, how to minimize estate taxes, and how to keep your estate out of probate if need be, so that you can decide who shares your estate and how much each recipient receives. Of course, the more assets you have to protect and the larger your estate is, the more important this step will be.
John R Frazier is an estate planning attorney who is experienced in asset protection and has received an advanced degree (LL.M.) in Taxation from the University of Florida, College of Law in 1998. For more information on how we can help you, please see our Practice Areas.
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