Asset protection is a set of legal techniques and a body of statutory and common law dealing with protecting assets of individuals and business entities from civil money judgments. The goal of asset protection planning is to insulate assets from claims of creditors without perjury or tax evasion.
Asset protection consists of methods available to protect assets from liabilities arising elsewhere. It should not be confused with limiting liability, which concerns the ability to stop or constrain liability to the asset or activity from which it arises. Assets that are shielded from creditors by law are few: common examples include some home equity, certain retirement plans and interests in LLCs and limited partnerships (and even these are not always unreachable). Assets that are almost always unreachable are those to which one does not hold legal title. In many cases it is possible to vest legal title to personal assets in a trust, an agent, or a nominee, while retaining all the control of the assets. The goal of asset protection is similar to bankruptcy, and the two practice areas go hand-in-hand. When a debtor has none to few assets, the bankruptcy route is preferable. When the debtor has significant assets, asset protection may be the solution.
The four threshold factors that are either expressly or implicitly analyzed in each asset protection case are:
- The identity of the person engaging in asset protection planning
- If the debtor is an individual, does he or she have a spouse, and is the spouse also liable? If the spouse is not liable, is it possible to enter into a transmutation agreement? Are the spouses engaged in activities that are equally likely to result in lawsuits or is one spouse more likely to be sued than the other?
- If the debtor is an entity, did an individual guarantee the entity’s debt? How likely is it that the creditor will be able to pierce the corporate veil or otherwise get the assets of the individual owners? Is there a statute that renders the individual personally liable for the obligations of the entity?
- The nature of the claim
- Are there specific claims or the asset protection is taken as a result of a desire to insulate from lawsuits?
- If the claim has been reduced to a judgement, what assets does the judgement encumber?
- Is the claim dischargeable?
- What is the statute of limitations for bringing the claim?
- The identity of the creditor
- How aggressive is the creditor?
- Is the creditor a government agency? Taxing authority? Some government agencies possess powers of seizure that other government agencies do not.
- The nature of the assets
- To what extent are the assets exempt from the claims of the creditors? For example, the degree of protection offered by the homestead exemption, the exemption of the assets in a qualified plan, i.e. assets in a plan under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) etc.
Whilst the aforementioned use of Trusts will be of benefit in a number of cases the question of ownership can still arise, as although legal ownership may have been transferred to the trustees, beneficial ownership may still in many cases lie with the settler of the Trust.
Asset protection planning requires a working knowledge of federal and state exemption laws, federal and state bankruptcy laws, federal and state tax laws, the comparative laws of many jurisdictions (onshore and offshore), choice of law principles, in addition to the laws of trusts, estates, corporations, and business entities. The process of asset protection planning involves assessing the facts, circumstances, and objectives of an individual, evaluating the pros and cons of the various options, designing a structure that is most likely to accomplish all the objectives of the individual (including asset protection objectives), preparing legal documents to carry out the plan, and ensuring that the various legal entities are operated properly in accordance with the laws and the objectives of the individual.
Certainly this is a complicated area of law and there are many factors to be considered. There are many methods and possibilities of protecting assets from creditors, and I would be happy to discuss these with you.
