Asset protection refers to techniques, strategies, and laws that aims to protect assets against third party claims.
The First Priority – Stay Out of Court
A well-constructed estate and asset protection plan has three fundamental goals:
- Keep legal control in the family – and avoid a court stepping into your personal financial or family affairs.
- Protect your savings and property from lawsuits.
- Give what you have, the way you want – at the least possible cost – saving as much taxes, court costs, and attorney’s fees as possible.
Legal Options in Florida
There are many strategies to protect assets, to make sure you are complying with Florida law you should have an experienced attorney help to make sure you are not putting yourself in jeopardy.
- Revocable Living Trust
- Purpose: Provide for you yourself and your family, retaining your control over assets in life, but providing for continuity of ownership upon incapacity or death, and providing for instructions for use for beneficiaries as you deem fit. The primary goal of such trusts is to avoid the probate process.
- Special Needs Trusts for persons with disabilities
- Purpose: Ensure that persons with special needs are not disqualified from receiving state or local benefits upon receipt of an inheritance.
- Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts (ILIT)
- Purpose: Typically used to minimize estate taxes on the federal and state level, which leaves more money to heirs of the estate.
- Dynasty Trust
- Purpose: Pass wealth to future generations and minimize estate and generation-skipping taxes.
- Spousal Lifetime Access Trust (SLAT)
- Purpose: An irrevocable trust into which one spouse transfers assets to benefit the other spouse and potentially other family members. This trust provides payouts to the beneficiary spouse while excluding the trust’s assets from the donor spouse’s gross taxable estate for income tax purposes.
- Spendthrift Trust
- Purpose: Protect beneficiaries’ assets from their creditors.
Contact Our Experienced Asset Protection Attorneys
Florida has very specific guidelines. If you have questions about asset protection strategies in Florida, or any other estate planning questions contact our law firm to schedule a consultation with one of our expereinced asset protection attorneys.
