A living trust can help to avoid many potential roadblocks. If you haven’t yet considered a living trust in California, you’ll want to acquaint yourself with some of the reasons why they are so important.

The first and perhaps most important reason to set up a living trust through California estate planning attorneys is the consideration of your children under the age of 18. In the event that you suddenly or unexpectedly pass away, a living trust will hold any of the monies garnered from your life insurance policy. Without this protection, a guardianship will be created for your estate – and this can be extremely expensive. The living trust allows you to choose your own “successor trustee” who will manage the trust, as well as real estate holdings, or any other assets that may be a part of your overall estate for your children. When you set up the living trust with the help of your California asset protection lawyers, you will have the opportunity to decide what your children will have access to and when they will get it.

Beyond the wellbeing of your children, the next most important reason to consider a living trust is your own health and wellbeing. A living trust will allow you to avoid having a guardian appointed to you as an adult. Your living trust will need to name a power of attorney – this will give your family the right to make decisions regarding your health, which is especially important if you face a coma or are otherwise not cognitively well. In addition to allowing family to make health decisions for you in the event of incapacitation, it also gives them the right to manage your liquid assets and work with the power of attorney and executor without the intervention of the court.

In addition to these benefits, a living trust can help to avoid probate if you include real property and assets under its protection. This can save your loved ones from months of tedious probate and from spending a great deal of money in court fees and the costs associated with publishing the opening of the probate – a legal requirement of beginning the process of probate.

No matter how robust the precautions your California corporation takes to avoid accidents or other unforeseeable events that could cause a judgment, the possibility is always there. For this reason, it is important for you to understand the manner in which your assets could be taken from you in the event your business is sued and what a California business asset planning lawyer can help you.

To begin, there is something called an internal claim – this type of claim essentially covers the type of accidents or other occurrences that affect only one aspect of your business. Say, for example, that your corporation owns a restaurant and a patron was burned on a plate that was too hot when it arrived to his table even though your staff informed him the plate was too hot and to be cautious. In this instance the (internal) claim could only go after the assets of the restaurant (such as equipment there and the real property owned by the restaurant), and not the assets held by other companies under the umbrella of your corporation. In addition, this claimant would not be able to sue for your personal assets.

The next type of claim is an external claim. This type of claim applies to another kind of scenario. For example, if your corporation owns a forklift and a pedestrian walks by while the forklift operator is not paying attention (and found to be negligent) and hits the pedestrian, the injured party may be able to sue for other assets held by other entities of your corporation and even go after your personal assets.

Both internal and external claims are good cause for steel belted asset protection. A California asset protection attorney such as Jeff Matsen can help you devise an asset protection plan in which different entities owned by your corporation are held by many different companies. An LLC can be established to hold real property, another can be set up to own equipment, and Matsen may also suggest an asset protection trust to own your home – this will make it far more difficult for a claimant to sue for your personal real property.

Talk to a California estate planning attorney who offers asset protection for corporations. It could be the best business decision you ever make.

If you are a small business owner in California, you may already know how difficult it can be to run your business. Aside from all the work it takes to pay overhead, manage employees, market products and services, you must also consider your quarterly profit margins and ultimately determine how well you are doing financially.

One of the many things successful small business owners overlook is the proper separation of assets, including real property, liquid assets, and intellectual property. Without California asset protection, a judgment brought against your business or you as an individual could cost everything you have earned. The way to avoid “getting taken to the cleaners” by a lawsuit or other claim is to protect what you have in separate trusts, companies, and if married, through marital property planning.

Depending on how much you own and how large your business is, you may need to set up multiple California LLCs and trusts to shelter everything from your home to your business equipment, any other real property, and any liquid assets. The way this works best is by separating what you own as much as possible so that if a judgment is brought against one entity in your possession, it cannot go after the assets or monies that are held by other entities you possess.

For example, if someone sues your company by name, they can only take what is owned by that company, and not your personal assets. If the company is an LLC and all it owns is the equipment used to run, the judgment can only go after those assets. Conversely, if someone were to sue you as an individual, they would not be able to go after the assets held by your company, or those held in any trust that is not in your name, including an offshore trust held in the name of a trustee.

If you are a small business owner, consider estate planning and asset protection in California before something undesirable occurs. Jeff Matsen can design a California asset protection plan for the protection of all you’ve worked so hard to attain. Start today by contacting Jeff Matsen, the Los Angeles and Newport Beach wealth management expert awarded a perfect score from the The Nationally Renowned Attorney Rating Service.

Of all the many places where an offshore account or trust can be set up, the Cook Islands offer some of the world’s best protection against lawsuits. For those of us who are high net worth individuals, especially those of us who are at a higher risk for lawsuits such as medical malpractice, foreign trusts in the Cook Islands have bulletproof protection for liquid assets and assets that can be quickly liquidated. For these reasons, considering a Cook Islands trust as part of your Newport Beach estate plan is a wise choice.

For a US plaintiff who has sued you, attempting to get to your assets held in a Cook Islands trust is generally so costly that endeavoring to reach them is usually not worth it. The reason for this is that the Cook Islands have among the toughest laws for protection of assets.

Your foreign trust is held in the highest confidentiality available in the world. Additionally, trustees and/or trustee companies assigned to your trust are strictly monitored by the Cook Islands’ highly structured and enforced legislation. The professionals in the Cook Islands that offer any services to your foreign trust are highly educated in asset protection and work under legislation so well crafted that it has been emulated in jurisdictions across the world.

Setting up your Cook Islands trust is something you will want to do as soon as you are able to; attempting to transfer money after a creditor has already filed claim or after you know you are being sued will not offer the protection you are looking for. An offshore trust should be used as preventative medicine, not as a way to cure a problem that already exists. No foreign judgments are enforceable in the Cook Islands – except for those in which proof of fraudulent transfer has been empirically proven.

Jeff Matsen can help you open your Cook Islands trust, ensure that assets have been transferred to the trust, register the trust under the asset protection laws of the Cook Islands, and help your trust maintain compliance when regulatory requirements change. Contact Matsen today to find out if a Cook Islands foreign trust is a good choice for your Newport Beach asset protection plan.

If you’re still unsure as to whether a trust is for you, there’s one simple question to answer: Is your net worth $100,000 or more? If it is, now is the time to talk to your Newport Beach estate planning attorney. There are a few other things to consider, of course, and there are many, many different kinds of trusts — which one is for you can only be determined with the help and guidance of a California estate planning lawyer with a strong background in asset protection, wills, and legal trusts.

One main thing to consider is who you want your money and assets to support when you are gone. A whole host of options exist for various needs, including generation-skipping trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, offshore trusts to protect assets, and many more. But who you want to benefit from your trust will largely determine the type of trust you decide on. A trust will help your beneficiaries in a number of ways, not the least of which is being spared from inordinate taxation, uncomfortable disagreements, and expensive — as well as extensive probate.

Whether you consider yourself wealthy or not, a trust will protect what wealth you do have by enumerating certain conditions that you decide with the help of your Newport Beach estate planning lawyer. You will name those who benefit from your trust and this will enable the proper heirs to receive what is rightfully theirs — in many cases without having to go through probate. Remember, whatever assets or other wealth you want protected by a trust MUST be in the name of the trust; otherwise it will most assuredly face probate — and the end result is likely not to be one you would have agreed with.

If you’re not as concerned about your wealth as you are about your health, planning your estate will give someone else the medical power of attorney, and planning an estate with a trust will appoint a trustee who will manage the trust in the event of your passing or in the event of your incapacitation.

A California estate planning attorney can create a trust with you — and the cost is infinitesimal when compared to what your loved ones will pay in taxes on your assets if you don’t. Reduce the financial risk and increase what you give when you’re gone — what better gift can you give yourself and your family?