Protection of your Assets
Protection of your assets is the important thing because there are many financial enemies who want to grab your assets for many reasons. These can be a private party or a creditor agency who is watching your every single activity and it is easy for them to seize your assets due to the laws in your country that does not control them from seizing the property of any individual.
For protecting the assets you have to make sure that the assets are not in your personal name, they are not easy to locate, and it is located in a jurisdiction where the laws make it difficult for enemies to grab your information. For more protection, find a jurisdiction which does not allow any information-sharing agreements with any country and do not give access to the foreign courts for any judgements regarding your assets.
Reasons to Protect Your Assets
1. It is very simple for anyone to get your personal and financial information.
It is very simple for anyone to get a clear picture of your financial information, it can be known to everyone with a single click. Make clear in mind that your personal data is with every organisation where you go once or on a regular basis, so detailed records are kept with the federal government, local government, the census office, the credit bureaus, insurance companies, health authorities, financial institutions, internet companies, and so on, these records include tax returns, various licenses and registrations, marriage certificates, deeds court documents, credit reports, medical histories, marketing profiles, insurance applications, etc. The worst thing in all these is you do not even know who is collecting and disseminating your information. There is a regulation in many countries to check the details of initials related to the creditors, litigants, with this, sometimes governments assign private detectives to find out how much money you have in the bank.
2. The more successful you are, the more are the chances of becoming targets of unwanted lawsuits
If you are rich and you have sufficient wealth and assets you will become an easy target of unwanted lawsuits, like divorce suits, damage suits, professional negligence suits, and several annoying lawsuits. If by default you get to indulge in any of the lawsuits it will not be long before your assets evaporate.
3. In case if your corporation is sued there are chances for you to lose all of your personal assets.
According to regulations these days, the lawsuits will name the directors of the company in order to sue the assets of the organisation as well as the assets of the director. In most countries, courts provide access to go after the directors of the company as well as the chairperson of the company.
4. Do not get much relaxed after retirement, it does not protect you from malpractice or liability exposure.
If you think it’s your retirement period and you will not get sued with any of the lawsuits, then make it clear in your mind that there are chances of getting sued for events that took place many years ago, you will not get sued in the condition if your applicable statute of limitations will not expire.
5. If the court allows your creditors, the assets on the name of your family members will also get seized
If the court decides that your wife and children are benefited from illegal enrichment, it orders the creditors to seize those assets of up to five years back and if any property is transferred with fraud means the assets on the name of wife and children are deemed for at least three years prior to the beginning of the lawsuit.
Conveyance of Assets
You can protect your assets by investing in real estate, it is possible in case when the assets are already in a vulnerable condition under your personal name, and you have the right to move those assets safely.
If you are indulged in a lawsuit affair which is going to be worse for you then it is very difficult to move your assets because in some countries the courts will deem the transfer of title on a property which is known for fraudulent within the prior three years before the time of filing the suit.
Each country has its own time limit for determining what is fraud conveyance but in general, three years is the minimum and sometimes it can be as many as five years.
Perhaps, if no lawsuit has been filed upon you, it is best for you to put your assets in an asset protection plan, it will protect your assets and meanwhile, it will provide you deep satisfaction.
Many times you can save yourself in the first stage of lawyer’s investigation because there are many lazy lawyers who only do a cursory public record check of your assets. In this general check, they look for illegal and fraudulent assets and if they found nothing the lawsuit will never get filed.
The lawyer will get nothing until he will find the inner details regarding the location of your assets but this process may take time and many lawyers do not spend this much time in a single case. If in case, going in deep your lawyer has made it known that you own fraudulent assets, you will have the chance of being safe because the public records will show that you do not own any property.
In case, if a lawsuit proves your assets to be fraudulent then the court orders to investigate the inner details regarding your assets. In this investigation, the officers assigned by the court examines the disclosure of any asset sold or conveyed with the previous 3 or 5 years depending on the law of the country.
In the investigation, if any information regarding your assets gets discovered then you have to pay a huge penalty due to the criminal prosecution charged upon you. Cash and securities transferred also come in these guidelines and the transferor of this have to make amends of the amount, along with these he also needs to show the purpose of the transfer done by him.
Offshore Solutions for Protecting Real Estate Assets
To save your assets and property, the best option is to use a limit liability company in the U.S and Canada or limited liability partnership in the U.K and Australia. These will help you in setting up your property in a proper manner. if you want to use these LLC or LLP in another country then they also contain something equivalent to this.
To set up an LLC or LLP with a foundation as sole member or 99% member if minimum 2 members are required, such as many U.S states LLC’s or the U.K. LLP.
The same can be applied for the solution of vessels, vintage or luxury cars and depositary storage of paintings, precious metals etc. with all this you can add assets to this list like assets that entail a title record maintained by some governmental or private organisation.
It is difficult to put the assets in the list which are stored in your house because it is difficult to prove that any other organisation owns the assets which are in your house right now.
Thus, in the case of the existing mortgage of the property the lender generally not allows you to transfer the property to a corporate entity till the loan payment process goes on.
If all the above will not happen in your case then you have the option to try and refinance the property to the possible amount of loan granted. If you do this, still you need equity to protect and so another possible solution is to file a so-called ‘friendlylien’ from an offshore company.
All these need to be done carefully because the courts know all these tantrums and it will ask questions regarding the holding of the company. So for this, the entity filing the lien needs to stay far away from the property owner and not associated in any way.
There are many agencies who provide you with the shelf or all set company who owns a clean history.
Asset Protection Solutions for Liquid Assets
To protect your liquid asset there are many offshore asset protection solutions, some of them are listed below:
1. Check the information sharing treaties with the chosen country
There are many countries which can become your business of interest like Panama is a good choice because it does not contain any regulations, to your next choice Belize is also a similar league, but before moving their check the tax havens because they are rushing to sign information-sharing agreements to appease richer Western nations. These countries sue high corporate tax to bid and attract foreign capital.
Panama has its own strategy to appease is to sign far less damaging dual taxation agreements rather than entering into tax information sharing agreements that would institutionalize endless fishing trips for information from the U.S and other advanced nations in a constant way flow of information.
2. The chosen country do not recognize foreign judgements
Many countries like Panama, Belize, Nevis and many other countries do not allow offshore jurisdiction in their countries.
3. Does your chosen country have strict banking secrecy and prohibit ‘fishing’ expeditions?
In many countries, the governmental agencies and private investigators being able to hunt down information on assets and their owners and Panama is at the top of this list.
4. Does the chosen country disclose corporate shareholder information?
Including many countries, Panama tax havens do not share the corporate shareholder income and keep it initially with them.
5. Does the chosen country make it easy for litigators to bring their suits to file in their court system?
In countries like Panama, Belize and Nevis do not make it so easy for litigators to bring their suits to file in their court system.
6. Does the strategy chosen provide, the director and shareholder solution and third-party managed solutions?
Companies in Panama have different jurisdictions from Panama foundation, it depends on the accomplishment needs along with the protection of assets.
It is always recommended to set a foundation and after this many companies act in it as a shareholder.
It is important for all to follow the general approach, it is safer and quite far from the original owners. For this, a more comprehensive solution involves the setup of an international Fiduciary Structure or use of professional management and signatory services option which allows strong protection of the assets and it also provides some distance from their original owner.
Multi-Jurisdictional Asset protection
It is important to choose the right country with strict financial privacy for the protection of your liquid assets. The best way to handle this is to use a multi-jurisdictional approach where one or more structures set up with a bank account in a different country, transfer of your country first go to a different company bank account, which you to reside for some time for keeping your bank contented.
After this, you can forward some of your money to any other company in a different country, or you also have an option to open a separate brokerage account in another country like Panama which holds very strict financial privacy.
For instance, you have created a special package known for the multi-Jurisdictional company that use two different companies, one set up in Panama, the other in Belize, each has their own bank accounts in both the countries.
The companies set are owned under the Panama foundation, it is used for the repatriation of funds by giving gifts to your children or to manage and plan your global estate.
Advantages of an Offshore Trust
The biggest advantage of an offshore trust is asset protection. The offshore trust helps in keeping assets protected from creditors. The US courts do not avail other locations and they do not own any jurisdiction in foreign countries and their citizens and local courts do not have the compatibility on the foreign trustee to release funds to any judgement creditors.
The countries like Nevis and Belize do not recognize any judgements that originate in a foreign country, like the United States. To reach the assets, the legal opponents initiate further litigation in an offshore jurisdiction. There are many obstacles for individuals who try to bring any litigation to trust.
The cook islands like Nevis and Belize are one of the best offshore trust jurisdictions because it’s a short statute of limitations on fraudulent conveyance. There is up to one-year time limit for your opponent to claim the fraudulent transfer, the time limit of one year starts from the date of the lawsuit or two years after the underlying cause of action. Therefore, when the lawsuit is completed in the U.S., the statute of limitations in the offshore jurisdiction will usually have expired. So it will become a great advantage for you because the creditor will not pursue the lawsuit in the Cook Islands after that time. Consequently, there are few trusts on which the creditors pursue In the Cook Islands.
Furthermore, if your opposition brings any lawsuit before the time out, the opponent must be needed to prove that the person creating the trust was to defraud the determine creditor. The best to place funds inside the legal challenges, with this the legal tool has consistently displayed its asset protection effectiveness.
Best Offshore Trust Jurisdiction Strategies
Nevis LLC and offshore trust are the best asset protection strategies among many others. You are free to hold the assets like offshore bank accounts inside the Nevis LLC. All the membership interest like the ownership of the LLC comes under foreign trusts, for example, the U.S residents have created one legal tool and is a member of the Nevis LLC. The manager has the legal control over the LLC and signature authority over the bank accounts, if they are properly organised and utilized, it will protect the assets from the eye of creditors, a U.S resident handles all the assets and yy full access on the assets without owning them.
If something wrong happens with you, you are allowed with a temporary license and a bonded trustee, manager of the LLC will manage your accounts. After this, the trustee, as a manager of the LLC will manage your accounts. Now the trustee will handle the things and protect your assets on your behalf in returns of your paid wages to him, this condition arrives at when the court would take your assets.
When everything takes a good way then the trustee reverts you with your rights as the manager of the LLC.
What is contempt of Court?
Sometimes clients ask with the court whether it is holding the contempt of court they do not bring back the funds that they have placed offshore. If the trust is properly drafted by the professionals, and the individuals have placed their funds there, the law protects them initially. The Duress Clause gives you protection from the creditors. If the trustee looks that request for funds arises from court-ordered duress, the trustee is bounded with his duty, due to the terms and conditions of the trust, to step in and protect your assets.
For example, a court orders a person to bring back all your funds, you just have to do nothing but write a letter to the trustee letting them know that the court order of repatriating the funds, in response to this the trustee will not release your money.
After this at the time of your court hearing, the judge will ask you to submit all your funds but you have to handle this wisely by arguing them that there must be a lawful order and it must be known to the contempt. You have to make them clear that you do not have violated their order. You have to show them that your money is seized by the trustees and they had not returned it to you yet. In this way, domestic law protects you and cook Islands law protects your money.
Offshore Banking
The offshore trust is best for holding offshore bank and brokerage accounts. According to a report, among the 50 safest banks in the world, only three are located in the United States. So for the protection of your assets, there are many safer banks located outside the U.S.
On the other hand, the U.S courts have more Jurisdiction over real estate. It is important to put your assets away from the domestic courts because domestic courts always demand the seizure of your assets, you have an option to save them by holding titles for the domestic real estate in the Nevis LLC which the trust owns, but you should have to liquidate real estate and move funds moved offshore in the event of legal duress.
Real Estate Asset Protection
As discussed above, there are only three banks which are considered safe for protecting your assets, then how do we protect U.S real estate? It can be done through equity stripping. In this, a equity line of credit mortgage or deed of trust on real estate. For this, you will need an offshore finance company to acquire the lien. The loan procedures are needed to be placed in an offshore trust. It might get risky to the lender for the borrower to run off with cash secured by foreign real estate. Thus the funds are placed in an account that anyone has access after the property is sold.
Asset protection and safety
The trustee of the offshore trust is licensed, it indicates that they are aware of the intensive background checks before the government granted the license. The trustee is bonded, that means the funds which are managed by the trustee are insured, With all these, the trustee company which we are using is needed to be at least 30 years old.
As mentioned earlier, in most of the assets protection trusts, the only event in which the trustee performs on your behalf is when the court attacks on your fund, in this situation you have two options first, the court will seize all your assets and funds and second is you can protect them with the help of a licensed and bonded trustee that has protected client funds over 30 years.
