How Do I Protect My Assets?
We have a professional, experienced team in place to help you protect your assets.
The actual creation of the asset protection plan is the science and art of knowing and complying with US and foreign laws specifically designed to help protect your assets. This is accomplished by attorneys, trustees, trust protectors, administrators and professional, experienced staff that work for you and constantly look out for you. Your protection is not a cookie cutter situation. Your asset protection is unique to your specific situation.
Here are the essential players involved in protecting your assets:
Asset Protection Secured, LLC
Asset Protection Secured is the company that has all of the critical relationship’s with attorneys, trustees and banks with 100s of years of experience protecting assets for clients, legally and safely. As an attorney for Asset Protection Secured, I have been to the Cook Islands and have met with and counseled the trustees that ensure trust/asset protection for 1000’s of their clients. I know them. I trust them. I have a personal relationship with most of the trustee companies that are required by law to carry out your wishes. Asset Protection Secured, LLC works with Trustees to get your asset protection trust the way to want it to be to protect what you want to protect.
The Settlor
This is you, the person who establishes the trust and whose assets are put into the trust. You appoint a person who will provide added protection to help watch over your trust assets. Your Trust Protector has powers to remove the Trustee without cause at any time. Unlike your assets being in an American Trust, the law protects you, protects your trust and protects your assets in the trust against anyone seeking to take those assets. You don't want to own anything, but you want to, and get to, control and protect the Trust assets with the Cook Island Trust.
The Trustee
This is the person or persons that actually manage and administer the trust assets on your behalf and carry out your instructions in the trust document. You obviously need to be satisfied with the reliability and competence of your trustee company. That is one reason our Asset Protection Secured legal representative needs to have been to the Cook Islands, counsels with the trustees, gotten to know the Trustees and is in constant communication with the Trustees. The Trustee must be a Cook Island resident. Fortunately, the Cook Islands Financial Supervisory Commission, the “FSC”, regulates and monitors its trustees (see the FSC website at: https://www.fsc.gov.ck/) similar to how Federal and/or State agencies monitor trustees and financial planners who have access to your assets in the USA. The trustee holds the legal title of all assets within the trust, although the Trustee cannot benefit from the trust whatsoever. The trustee becomes your lifesaver if an American court (or any other court - or anyone) demands you to hand over your assets, because your Cook Island Trustees are not subject to an American court mandate (or any other court or attorney mandates or demands).
The Protector
This is ingenious. A protector oversees the trustee’s actions regarding the trust. This position gives you another level of protection for the trust assets as you will likely appoint a very trusted family member, trusted attorney or trusted friend to further protect the trust assets. The trust protector can have certain controls over the Trustee to help ensure the Trustee is administering your wishes as set forth in the trust document. The protector has the power to remove a trustee and appoint another trustee. A Protector has the right to veto any proposed distributions to beneficiaries. The first Protector appointed in the trust deed can even be you as the settlor, or a person trusteed by you. If litigation develops while you are the Protector, an alternative Protector can replace you for added protection.
The Beneficiary or Beneficiaries
This is the person, people or entity(ies) that you want to legally benefit from the trust assets, including yourself. An American trust does not allow you to be a beneficiary of such a trust. This is an amazing benefit.
The goal is to put yourself in the best position possible so that when a lawsuit or other threat hits, you will be in a position of optimal strength. The plan is for you to dictate your own financial destiny. It is not to have a devious attorney weaving a web of legal tricks. It is about strictly following the law as it is written by a legislative body, in the face of an ugly event occurring for which you need legal protection. The law is what gives you the real protection.
The idea is that you own nothing but have an unusual access to, and the benefit of, everything. Assets in your name are vulnerable to those looking to take them. Unless your assets are exempted by U.S. law, (like a homestead exemption in some States) then they are vulnerable to seizure. You want to keep your name out of the public records so that an asset search is useless. There is no good reason to own a car, a house, or other assets in your name. You need to have access to the assets, but you can do that without owning the assets. There are legal tools to help you keep the benefit of your assets.
What do you know about asset hiding?
If you watch movies or T.V. you may hear talk about hiding assets. Hiding assets can be done sometimes, but hiding does not legally protect your assets. We are talking about legal protection which is very different than hiding assets. We are talking about ethical, legal protection. You are looking to make your asset protection plan as bullet proof as possible, so you just don’t have to worry any more. Asset protection is about hiding assets in plain sight with the law on your side.
To do this, you need to structure your affairs so that lawyers, courts and judges do not have the legal ability or power to give what is yours to someone else. To do this sometimes involves using legal tools in jurisdictions that provide that kind of legal protection for your assets. This means using the laws of other reputable and trustworthy Countries. Many Countries have constructed laws favoring those that have, or may fall victim to extraordinary litigation. This kind of litigation happens too often. I have seen it too much, and have been a victim of it in my career, and unfortunately, it is getting worse in the USA.
There are many factors that courts look at to determine whether or not your assets are truly protected. A transfer of assets to other people after you know a lawsuit is coming, or after you have already been served with one, can be problematic as such a transfer could be looked at as fraudulent. Such a transfer would need to be analyzed to determine if it can be protected and how. And there are some great laws to protect you in that regard. If you simply move assets to your wife or the kids, that would be an enormous mistake. The plaintiff’s attorney will simply sue everyone to get the assets back. Asset protection has to be done in the right way, for the right reasons and in the right jurisdiction to protect your assets. That is why a Cook Island Trust is so important.
That being said, we rely on the Cook Islands laws and sometimes Nevis laws to create the gold standard of asset protection that protects you better than anywhere else in the world from asset scavenger predators. This is the most bullet proof protection on earth.
The legal tools used to protect you may include the use of domestic and offshore trusts, limited and family partnerships, limited liability companies (LLCs) and corporations. Other methods based in the USA include using laws such as a homestead exemptions and asset stripping.
Asset protection planning and strategy include proven actions that have been implemented since the late 1970s to put you in the best position possible to protect your against legal threats. They can help keep legal predators from taking your hard-earned wealth. Such tools comprise the key elements of your financial freedom and peace of mind. If you structure all of this properly, you can achieve a higher level of financial security in this lawsuit-prone world. Thus, you can put yourself in a place to keep more of what is yours, and you will sleep better at night knowing what you have done. The key is the Cook Island Trust.
Let us help you get protected. Just give us a call or contact us at 913-914-7979 and we can help you on the path of protection.