Asset Protection Attorney in Colorado Springs, CO
Check Your Insurance Coverage:
Homeowner’s Policies: Fires and other calamities happen frequently. You must check that your house is adequately insured should a disaster completely destroy it. For example, some families who lose their homes in fires find that their $250,000 liability policy will not go very far in replacing a home that costs $400,000 to rebuild to meet modern codes and increased building costs. Clients who suffered through the Waldo Canyon and Black Forest fires in Colorado Springs in the summers of 2012 and 2013 know this only too well.
Umbrella Insurance Policies: The cheapest property and casualty insurance you can buy is umbrella coverage. It typically covers non-business liabilities when your other insurance is exhausted. For example, if you have a judgment against you for an automobile wreck, and your auto insurance policy doesn’t cover the full amount, your umbrella policy may kick in to cover all or a portion of the remainder of the judgment. You should purchase the amount of umbrella coverage that equals your net worth.
Personal Property Policies: The value of many of your items of personal property, while priceless to you, could also be considerably expensive to replace and your current homeowner policy may not cover replacement costs. You should take into account such important things as custom college rings, inherited jewelry or expensive firearms. Again, the lessons of the Waldo Canyon and Black Forest fires is proof of this requirement.
Business Liability Policies: We all know that our society is litigious. Trial lawyers are always expanding their theories of vicarious liability, meaning you have to defend yourself against more and more creative ways of getting money from you. Make sure that your coverage for accidents is adequate to keep you from losing everything, in your business, or even personally.
Home Accident Policies: The coverage for accidents on your homestead should also be reviewed to determine if the coverage is adequate.
Life Insurance Policies: Is your coverage adequate if you have recently had children, grandchildren or adult children have returned to the nest? Many stay-at-home spouses are uninsured or underinsured. In most cases, the working spouse has not calculated the true financial cost of child care, meal preparation, cleaning and other important jobs done by stay at home spouses. The spouse bringing in most of the family’s income may not appreciate all that their spouses do, until something happens and the cost of replacing the tremendous value that spouse contributes to the family is finally evident.
Smoke Detectors: If you are going to be buying batteries for all your electronic equipment, buy some extra ones and replace all of the batteries in your smoke detectors as an annual basis. Set the date and mark it on your calendar.
Asset Protection Entity: If you have investment real estate that you rent, or even raw land, consider placing that real estate in a partnership or limited liability company for your protection. Without entity-based planning, you have a metaphorical “six lane highway” leading right up to your front door if you are sued.
Advanced Planning
Asset protection planning is a significant part of our Firm’s law practice. Buckley Law represents many doctors (including doctor groups), dentists and other health care professionals. Buckley Law also represents many high-net worth individuals and entrepreneurs (including women entrepreneurs). The tools we use are legal, ethical, and customary in this type of planning. We do not use tools or techniques that are not sanctioned by the Internal Revenue Service or that would be seen objectively as seeking to defraud a creditor. Legitimate asset protection planning must be done before a lawsuit happens. If a lawsuit occurs first, or you even think it is coming, it may be too late to do anything that protects you from any future judgment in that case.
We regularly employ legal tools to provide numerous lines of defense for entrepreneurs, high-net worth individuals, and professionals that face significant liability in the day-to-day practice of their profession. Those tools include irrevocable trusts (trusts formed inside or outside the US that own onshore assets) as well as limited liability companies and limited partnerships.
Most importantly, not all asset protection tools are the same. Where you form an entity is just as important as forming the entity itself, because not all jurisdictions are the same. Some jurisdictions where you form an entity provide better protection than other jurisdictions. The primary purpose of using entities (corporations, LLC,s partnerships) for asset protection planning is to provide multiple layers of defense, insulating your personal assets from the creditor seeking to seize those assets in a judgment. A secondary purpose is to allow an opportunity for early settlement at significantly less cost in the event a lawsuit does occur.
Articles
“Portability” of the Federal Estate Tax Exemption – What does it Mean? Copy
With the political and economic climate as it is in the summer of 2008, we are not likely to see total repeal of the federal estate tax in the foreseeable future. However, both Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates support estate tax reform. Realistically,...