Asset Protection Strategy Consideration
Our Asset Protection System
Asset Protection: Part 2 of 4, by Rocco Beatrice, Sr.
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You see the writing on the wall.
You’re not certain if this litigation is going to begin in a month, six months, or year; but you definitely feel the stress related to it. The thought is consuming and dominating your daily life. If you have never gone through this nightmare, I can tell you: … IT’S EXHAUSTING.
Our Asset Protection System is financially engineered to protect</> your wealth against unscrupulous lawyers, internet prying eyes about you, your family, your finances, scam artists, identity thieves, and other con-artists, and “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help you.”
90% of the time asset protection gets dismantled due to fraudulent conveyance</>
Regardless of what structure that you use, whether it be a limited partnership (LP), a family limited partnership (FLP), a domestic Limited Liability Company (LLC), a domestic corporation, a domestic Sub S corporation, a domestic trust, or even an offshore trust, if the judge sees that your transfers were without fair market consideration</> (i.e. you never got paid a fair price for them when you gave them away), they can be clawed back by the court.
Something this stressful gets some people so overwhelmed with fear and anxiety that it causes them an inability to take action. They think that if they keep pushing it aside, and bury their head in the sand, that the problem is somehow going to go away on its own.
This is exactly what happened to someone that called us a last year, but it happens at least once every year. Mike originally reached out to us at a time that there was a high risk of a court battle coming, but nothing was set in stone yet. Because he hadn’t actually been served papers indicating that he’s been sued, he thought there might be a chance that there may never be a lawsuit, so he decided to hold off taking action to avoid the cost.
A few months later from our phone call he found out through a series of checks that bounced that his bank accounts were frozen. The creditor got a preliminary judgment and brought it to his bank, freezing the accounts without even his knowledge.
At that point, not only was there nothing that anyone could do, but he couldn’t even access funds to retain a defense attorney because all of his money was frozen.
You don’t have to go through what Mike went through.
BUT… I’m sure you’re thinking, “well, by using an offshore trust, the judge doesn’t have any jurisdiction, so a ‘judgment’ is not executable and It’ll be fine” and you’d be partially right… except for one small detail:
1. Offshore trusts typically cost $5-10,000 a year to maintain
2. If you have committed a fraudulent conveyance, most judges now put you in jail until you comply with a court order to bring the money back into the United States.
Offshore trusts for real estate work even less well:
Real estate that is physically located in a state that the court does have jurisdiction (even if the property is owned by an offshore trust), can be unwound if it is found that you gave up the asset without getting anything for it.
And while setting up a structure and transferring assets into it well before a problem arises is the best advice, the issue of “fraudulent conveyance” still will come up because there is a 4-5-year statute of limitations for any transfer if you do not get paid for it.
This means that, even if you take action before a lawsuit happens, but less than four – five years from the transfer of the assets, you could still be at risk of a fraudulent conveyance claim. So, if you take the wrong advice, you could lose more than “just money, you could be held civilly and criminally liable” taking advice from every 3rd lawyer who claims to be “the Asset Protection Expert.” Most lawyers use the “gifting method” to transfer assets. “GIFTING” is a Fraudulent Conveyance.
Under the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act you would be committing a crime, see Section 19.40.041
… (a) a transfer made or obligation incurred by a debtor is fraudulent as to a creditor whether the creditor’s claim arose before or after the transfer was made or the obligation was incurred, if the debtor made the transfer or incurred the obligation: (1) with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud any creditor of the debtor.”…
Your lawyer could also be held liable, and possibly lose his license under the theory for civil conspiracy:
The “civil conspiracy theory” has been defined by the courts as (1) an agreement (2) by two or more persons (3) to perform overt act(s) (4) in furtherance of the agreement or conspiracy (5) to accomplish an unlawful purpose or a lawful purpose by unlawful means (6) causing injury to another.
Read part 1 of 4: Asset Protection Strategy
Read part 3 of 4: Irrevocable Trust Structure
Read part 4 of 4: Avoiding Fraudulent Conveyance Derivative Financial Instrument