How You Can Build An Estate Plan That Includes Asset Protection
You are highly recommended to be proactive in terms of asset protection. Nevertheless, you can take full advantage of proactive estate planning to ensure that your assets are protected when faced with such situations.
Must You Include Asset Protection in Your Estate Plan?
It is true that your assets may never need protection, especially if you will never experience these events; however, you should be ready for these unforeseen situations that can make you lose your assets. You have continuously worked hard for years to acquire personal assets and get where you are, and just a simple omission of asset protection in your estate planning may make you lose your assets within a few months or years. This loss will radically transform your life and those of your heirs.
Threats to be Avoided
Building an estate plan that includes asset protection can help you avoid the following threats to your assets:
- Forced inheritance, such as a cohabitant’s claim
- Capital Gains Tax
- Inheritance tax
- Business failure
- Family or marital issues
- Care costs
Types of Asset Protection
There are two main types of asset protection as discussed below:
Protecting Assets for Yourself
You need to protect your assets long before any proceeding that may threaten them, including divorce, bankruptcy, or judgement. Since many highly-detailed rules and regulations surround this kind of asset protection, you should seek qualified advice from an estate planning attorney.
Protecting Assets for Your Loved Ones
This kind of asset protection entails creating discretionary lifetime trusts instead of setting up outright inheritance, mandatory income trusts, or staggered distributions. Different stages offer varying grades of protection, which are much better than a trust which allows for ascertainable standards distributions.
Getting Started
Most estate planning activities revolve around how your assets will be distributed when you pass away. More importantly, estate planning also determines the way your affairs will be handled if you no longer have the ability to make decisions about them as it covers smart incapacity planning. Basically, it sums up what the whole process entails. That said, several factors are considered when crafting a comprehensive estate plan, one of which is asset protection.
You should note that there is no universal plan that works for everyone. Our competent attorneys will help you customized your plan to meet your unique circumstance while ensuring that your assets are protected in the best legal and ethical way possible. If you may have any questions or inquiries about estate planning, or you would wish to book an appointment, feel free to contact our estate planning lawyers at The Mattar Firm. We are always happy to serve you.