St. Petersburg Asset Protection Lawyer
You spend a lifetime working or building a business, establishing a home and a good quality of life for your family, but without the right kind of planning, a lifetime of accumulated wealth can be gone faster than you think. Lawsuits, creditors, divorce, taxes, and long-term illness, injury or disability can all lay a claim on your hard-earned assets. Waiting until a crisis appears makes it very difficult to protect those assets. The smarter move is to take steps now to protect your assets before the need arises. The St. Petersburg asset protection lawyers at Legacy Protection Lawyers can help you do just that. See below for examples of different asset protection techniques, and contact our St. Petersburg office for help with asset protection in the Tampa Bay area.
Premarital Agreements
Premarital agreements can be used to keep separate property separate and outside of a property division in case of divorce, or dictate how marital property will be divided or whether alimony will be paid. In cases where either spouse is in a second marriage and has children from a previous union, it may be important to preserve an inheritance for those children without unfairly disadvantaging the second spouse. A premarital or postmarital agreement can dictate the terms of a will and whether or not a spouse will be allowed to take an elective share under Florida probate law. It’s not easy to keep a separate estate separate without careful planning; our experienced and knowledgeable estate planning attorneys can come up with solutions that work for you, your spouse and your children, such as an income trust, to make sure everyone is properly taken care in the event of death or divorce.
Family Limited Partnerships
If you have a family business to pass on or valuable property you want to ensure stays in the family, a Family Limited Partnership (FLP) is a popular and effective tool for ownership transfer. With members of the elder generation acting as general partners and younger family members serving as limited partners, family members can jointly own important property, with property passing at the appropriate time without prohibitive capital gains taxes.
LLCs
A Florida Limited Liability Company (LLC) offers the liability protection of a corporation without the disadvantage of double taxation, and an LLC can be an excellent vehicle to protect personal assets from business creditors. Our asset protection lawyers know the important steps to take in utilizing an LLC for asset protection, such as taking out insurance for both business and personal property, maintaining the LLC as a separate entity and not an alter ego of the owners, establishing credit for the LLC so owners don’t have to guarantee personal loans to the business, and managing the amount of money kept in the LLC at any one time.
Supplemental Needs Trusts
For children and adults with special needs or developmental disabilities, government assistance can be critical to obtaining medical care, housing and living expenses. With a supplemental needs trust, you can make sure they continue to qualify for public assistance while still benefiting from the important financial help you are able to give them.
Call Legacy Protection Lawyers in St. Petersburg for Asset Protection in Tampa Bay
For knowledgeable, responsive and reliable advice and assistance with asset protection in the Tampa Bay area, call on Legacy Protection Lawyers in St. Petersburg at 727-471-5868. Schedule a consultation today.
