Protect Your Business AND Your Personal Assets

As a business owner, is protecting your wealth from creditors, predators, lawsuits and bankruptcy important to you?  Is it important to keep claims against your business separate from claims against your personal assets such as your home, vehicles and life savings?  If your answer to these questions is “yes,” then implementing asset protection strategies that combine limited liability entities such as corporations and LLCs with asset protection trusts is a must.

Don’t Let This Happen To You

Would you be prepared for such an event? Years ago, our firm had a client who operated a bicycle repair shop. One of his employees failed to repair a bicycle properly. A screw in the bike came loose while being used by their customer. It caused that person to flip over their handle bars and hit their head on some pavement. Brain injuries left them with a lot of medical bills and a host of issues for the rest of their life.

The customer took legal action, holding the bike shop responsible. Even though his employee was the one at fault, the business owner was the one on the hook for the damages. Suddenly everything was on the table for the owner of that repair shop. His home, his car and his hard-earned life savings were all at risk.

Protect Yourself From These Four Liabilities

As a business owner you know you have to deal with risk. A number of scenarios can put your assets in grave danger. Claims can come from at least four different areas;.

  • Employee negligence
  • Debts due to vendors
  • Product liability
  • Professional liability

Planning ahead is the solution. Setting up the right legal vehicles before claims arise will limit the business claims to business assets. Your hard-earned personal assets will be protected from liability.

Enhancing Your LLC is Mission Critical

Limited liability entities come in several different forms.  The most common are corporations and limited liability companies (LLCs).  Combining a trust with a limited liability entity offers better overall asset protection.  Corporations and LLCs accomplish asset protection because they limit a creditor’s claims to only the assets of the corporation/company.  However, this protection is only available if the corporation/company actually operates as a separate entity.  If a creditor is able to show that the entity is merely an alter-ego of its owners, the creditor may be able to “pierce the corporate veil” and reach beyond the corporation’s assets to the assets of the owners.  This is why using additional asset protection tools, such as trusts, is vitally important.

Not All Trusts Are Created Equal

The revocable Qualified Spousal Trust provides asset protection to a married couple as long as both the husband and wife are alive. Irrevocable trusts, however offer much stronger asset protection. Here’s the rule of thumb;  whatever you don’t want your creditors to have access to, you yourself also can’t have access to. Depending on the type of asset (real estate and other non-liquid assets versus stocks bonds and other liquid assets), different irrevocable trusts may be used for the best mixture of asset protection and control.

Plan Your Asset Protection Strategy Now

Planning ahead for protection from creditors, predators, lawsuits and bankruptcy is critically important for business owners. These strategies require planning before your issues arise as Missouri law allows creditors to satisfy claims from assets that are transferred to an asset protection vehicle while known claims are pending.  If protection from creditors, predators, lawsuits and bankruptcy is important to you, consider combining trusts with limited liability entities now before it is too late.

Call today for an appointment. Quinn Estate & Elder Law will help you discover the proper mix of asset protection vehicles for your situation.

Written by Brian G. Quinn, Attorney with Quinn Estate & Elder Law