Thursday, July 5, 2012

Protecting your Assets

To protect your assets is one of the most important things anyone can do for themselves and their families. The wealthiest of people have all understood the most important aspect of a trust. The trust holds the assets, and the person controls the trust. It is the control of the assets without the liability that is the important part of the trust.
I have read many articles in the news about problems people have and how they are in trouble and they are getting sued and losing everything. These people didn't understand the power of the trust. A story I read was about a hard working man. He was a general contractor, he worked hard and his motto was that he would not take a dime unless he had earned it. This contractor did amazing work. He had a very nice house, and he had a nice truck to go to work and back. He had a lot of tools for the trade he had accumulated over the years. These nice things created a target on this man. You see not every person is willing to work hard. Not every person understands or believes in honesty and integrity.
This contractor had been so busy building things that he failed to protect his assets, his families assets. It  only took one small accident and this man who had worked for years, was being sued for everything that he had worked so hard to protect. He had insurance, and he had an attorney, but he did not have a layer of protection because all these things were owned by him. When I met this person he had filed for protection under the bankruptcy laws, and still had lost in court. He owed his attorney thousands of dollars. He lost most of his tools when they were sold to pay the judgements. He was moving out of his home, that was being sold to pay judgements.
This could have been easily avoided with a trust. Not every trust is the same. What you want in a trust, is a trust that limits your liability from your assets. The 508 trust when set up correctly can do this job very well. It is very difficult to find out information on the trust. The trust is non-reporting. The trust is protected by federal statues, and when set up in Washington State. The 508 trust does not give any information except for the trustee. When a lawyer and his client are looking at litigation, if they cannot find any money they will move to the next victim. You don't want to be that victim. Learn about the power of the 508 trust.

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