Asset Protection

We assess your risks, design the proper strategy to mitigate those risks to protect your current lifestyle and protect your family legacy

When it comes to estate tax planning, risk management, and risk mitigation, there are effective strategies to reduce or even eliminate estate taxes, protect your hard-earned assets, using integrated estate planning with asset protection. Traditional old-line investments can have a seat at the table, but it is the synthesis of the newer and more creative strategies that have enabled us to help savvy investors grow and hold on to their assets even through troubled waters.

Let us show you advanced disruptive technologies that will transform your thinking.

As a successful investor, you haven’t achieved your success by being content with the status quo. So, thinking differently should hardly be disruptive. There’s no downside to looking.

Asset Protection Trust

Creating a family trust to avoid probate and reduce administrative costs is like skydiving without a parachute.  The estate planning process is not complete until you have considered the ways to protect your hard-earned wealth from lawsuit creditors and predators.

In fact, 95% of the world’s lawsuits are filed in this country. Whether you are looking at a basic estate plan or one more sophisticated to mitigate large death taxes, asset protection planning is mission critical to preserving and protecting your family’s legacy.

Domestic Asset Protection Trust

All these domestic structures can protect your assets—but when it comes to using the cash flow from those assets to support your lifestyle, domestic asset protection structures have their limitations. A court has the power to block the use of the cash flow to support the debtor’s lifestyle through a court-issued Protective Order, leaving no ability for the debtor to pay his bills. The tougher you make it for a future creditor to reach your assets, the quicker the case will be settled for a much smaller sum.

Foreign Asset Protection Trust

Since 1990, the Cook Islands have been regarded the premier asset protection trust jurisdiction in the world. More lawsuits involving Cook Islands trusts have been favorably settled than in any other jurisdiction.

Private Retirement Plan

For the California resident, meet the best asset protection strategy you have never heard of -The Private Retirement Plan or PRP.

With a Private Retirement Plan, sanctioned under CCP 704.115, the employer establishes the PRP and allows the employee/participant to fund the PRP with assets currently on the balance sheet to fund and supplement your qualified retirement plan benefits. Under California statutory law, assets placed in your PRP, such as cash, stocks, business profits, savings, bonds, gold, real estate, notes, even corporate stock, and private business interests can all be contributed to the PRP to fund your future retirement.  Only child support and alimony obligations may pierce the PRP. Not even a bankruptcy judgement will penetrate the PRP absent a fraudulent transfer.

Take our Exemption Analysis test to see how protected you may be and what can be done to immunize your holdings from future unknown lawsuit creditor and predators.

Case Studies

Bill and Mary: Protected Their Assets From Lawsuits or Attachment

Bill and Mary, a couple with a strong desire to safeguard their legacy and retain control over their resources, sought assistance from Falcon Rappaport & Berkman’s Asset Protection Practice Group. With over 35 years of marriage and three married children, they aimed to protect their assets while accessing them when needed. Bill, a successful business owner and investor, received an appealing offer to sell his business and wished to devote more time to his family and personal investments, including rental properties. He also intended to remain on the board of directors of certain companies. Concerned about potential liabilities, Bill sought advice on restructuring their estate plan. Falcon Rappaport & Berkman provided a solution encompassing comprehensive estate planning and reducing their taxable estate by gifting assets to their children and grandchildren while maintaining control. By implementing this strategy, Bill and Mary achieved their objectives: asset protection, estate tax reduction, control over their properties and investments, and a robust estate plan that would withstand legal challenges in the future. This matter was handled by the attorneys in our Asset Protection Practice Group prior to joining FRB earlier this year.