Protect Your Lifelong Achievements

Your hard-earned assets and the legacy you've built deserve safeguarding. As you aspire to leave a lasting impact on your family, it's crucial to shield your wealth from potential threats that could unnecessarily wipe out your life's work.

A North Carolina Asset Protection Plan can prevent your hard-earned life’s work!

What is Asset Protection Planning?

Woman with asset protection planning in place to safeguard property

Asset protection planning involves employing strategic tools to shield your property and wealth from taxes, lawsuits, creditors, and other risks. For some, it extends to safeguarding assets from the rising costs of nursing home and long-term care.

Asset protection planning could be something you undertake for yourself or something you set up for your surviving spouse and children. Many parents choose to leave the assets to their children's asset protection trusts, which protect the children’s inheritance from the child’s lawsuits, creditors, divorce, and/or bankruptcy. 

Consider this scenario: let’s say you leave $500,000 to your child outright via a will.  A year or two after receiving the inheritance your child’s spouse files for divorce, they are able to claim $250,000 in the divorce settlement because the $500k went to your child outright. Alternatively, and the better scenario, let’s assume that instead of leaving the $500,000 to your child outright, you left it in an asset protection trust for your child. When your child’s spouse files for divorce, they cannot make a claim to the assets in the trust.

Asset Protection Risks

Numerous risks can jeopardize your financial well-being, including:

  • Lack of proper insurance and protection
  • Unnecessary taxes due to insufficient planning
  • Unpreparedness for healthcare and long-term care costs
  • Legal liabilities from accidents or professional malpractice
  • Debilitating medical debts from unexpected illnesses

Your Loved One’s Asset Protection Risks

Your legacy can face premature erosion due to the following:

  • Surviving spouse's remarriage and unintentional bequests
  • Financial unpreparedness for healthcare costs*
  • Poor financial decisions by surviving spouse or heirs
  • Lawsuits, divorces, or medical events affecting heirs

*Medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the U.S.

How An Asset Protection Planning Attorney Can Help

Our Cary asset protection attorneys specialize in creating personalized plans for North Carolina residents. Regardless of your financial status, our programs cater to all families. Through various tools, we can help you:

  • Shield against lawsuits and healthcare costs
  • Protect your properties from legal claims
  • Safeguard personal and business assets
  • Structure businesses for enhanced protection
  • Shield surviving spouses and heirs from future risks

Don't Be a Sitting Target

Unfortunately, some individuals are more likely to be sued due to their professional or financial stature—in other words, those who have something to lose.

In our years of experience working with thousands of clients in the Wake County area, we find that asset protection planning is particularly important if any of the following apply:

  • Your net worth is $1M or more, including home, vacation, or rental properties;
  • You are a high-income professional or business owner;
  • You own a business with significant value.

Don’t leave yourself or your loved ones stuck dealing with the financial aftermath of a lawsuit, medical bills, or long-term care costs.

A great place to start is by attending our free estate planning workshop. There, you will learn the three secrets to protecting yourself, your loved ones, and your hard earned assets from nursing home expenses and what it will cost if you don’t plan!

For more information on how Carolina Family Estate Planning can help, call our Cary office at 919-586-8222 to discuss the next steps or fill out our online form, and we’ll call you. Don't forget, if you're starting out in your estate planning journey, our Estate Planning Workshop is a great place to start.

 

Jackie Bedard
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Attorney, Author, and Founder of Carolina Family Estate Planning