Homestead laws are very important from the standpoint of asset protection. In some states, homesteaded property is completely exempt from the claims of creditors. In other states, homestead protection exempts a certain dollar amount from the claims of creditors. We…
Asset protection structures and mechanisms are nothing new. They've been around for centuries. The wealthiest people on earth take advantage of asset protection planning, and history shows that wealthy people always have pursued asset protection as a goal. A simple…
We wrote previously on special powers of appointment and how they can be used in domestic trusts for asset protection purposes. Powers of appoint have been around for a long time, dating back to times of old English common law. …
We have written pretty extensively on the Olmstead decision handed down by the Florida Supreme Court. It seems that many people, in addition to asset protection attorneys, are considering the potential long-term impact of that opinion, the Florida Legislature included. …
This article is a continuation of Why Offshore is the Strongest Form of Asset Protection: Even Better Than Special Powers of Appointment. Once a lawsuit is filed against you and a plaintiff's attorney discovers the existence of a domestic trust,…
New Jersey is another state from which many people call with questions about asset protection. Rightly so, because New Jersey does not offer any homestead exemption, which means that anyone with unprotected assets is completely at risk of losing EVERYTHING,…
We've been getting a lot of questions about how asset protection laws vary from state to state. One state that people have questions about in particular is California. So let's take a look at how things operate in California in…
Some states are more favorable to asset protection than others. One way to tell whether a state is favorable to asset protection is to look at whether it has a charging order statute in place. Some state statutes specify that…
In a very recent article, we discussed the concept of powers of appointment in asset protection trusts. The use of a power of appointment can be used in domestic and in conjunction with other tools creating offshore asset protection. We…
A self-settled trust is one where the person creating the trust (the "settlor") is also the beneficiary. It's easy to understand why courts frown on this type of trust for asset protection purposes. In theory, a self-settled trust could simply…