Insider Secret #15

Bulletproof Protection for your Home, from creditors, judgments & IRS liens.

a.) LLC or LP entity ownership
b.) Joint tenancy, Tenants in Common, Tenants in the Entirety – and which one to always use!
c.) Trusts: Grantor vs. Non-grantor. Which offers asset protection and which one offers tax avoidance?

This is important for anyone, who owns any asset of value and has equity in it. This is bulletproof protection for your home from creditors, from judgments and quite often, when structured properly, I’ve even seen investors’ assets protected from the IRS and its claims as well.

When you own a home or when you buy a home, you’re generally offered three different ways in which to take ownership.

You can take ownership in joint tenancy or by tenants in common, or by tenant by the entirety. Those are the three most common forms of ownership. The one you use will determine how well protected your assets will be.

Tenants in common: This is simply when two people own property together when they are not related. . There is limited asset protection with this, but a creditor or a judgment could still take away your share of the asset.

Joint tenancy: This would be for people who are related and buying a property together, and if one partner died, that partner’s share of the property would go to the partner that remains alive. However, you jointly own the property.

You’re also jointly liable, and if one partner had some credit or IRS problems, or some lawsuit problems — the property can now be taken from both of you, or a lien could be put on it — which would cloud the equity in that property

Tenants by the entirety: This, however, is a form of joint ownership for married couples. As of the time of this writing, if one partner in the marriage has had financial issues or lawsuits, … and the other one doesn’t … in the ‘tenants by the entirety’ (or sometimes know as ‘tenants by the entireties’ ownership), the creditors, and the judgments can’t come after the property — because the property isn’t owned in an equally divisible way.

Entity Ownership: Now a step beyond these three basic forms of ownership is what is known as ‘entity ownership’. With this, you can actually put the property into a Limited Liability Company or a Limited Partnership. These entities can be formed for only a few hundred dollars.

This Limited Liability Company or limited partnership offers protection for the asset, as well as protection between the partners — from each other’s individual liabilities or future liabilities from outside creditors’ judgments and lawsuits. This is especially important when owning a property, with an unrelated person or partner.

However, this entity needs to be run properly. It needs to be run as an official entity, with a separate checkbook and separate minutes to meetings. And it cannot be considered an ‘alter ego’ in the eyes of the law.

You must get brief counseling from an attorney on this. A lot of my Real Estate clients, who have done this, have done so very effectively and fended off many creditors and even the IRS. The downside to this is that it takes a little bit of extra administration and a little extra time. But it’s certainly worth the peace of mind when it comes to protecting your hard earned asset from lawsuits, creditors and potential future unforeseen issues in one’s life.

Defer or avoid Estate Taxes. Protect your Asset and your Heirs:
Two Types of Trusts.

Estate taxes can be quite disappointing to many people, especially when they have built up even a moderately sizable estate. These taxes can reach as much as 50%, or more, of a person’s estate.

When putting your house in a trust, you need to know there are two popular types of trusts and many other minor types. They are the Grantor Trust for estate planning and the Non-Grantor trust — which also helps with fending off lawsuits.

This is an area where you should consult an estate planning attorney for a better understanding of the many benefits, as well as the difference of each type of trust.

These trusts aren’t that expensive. Some of them cost anywhere from only a few hundred dollars, up to a couple of thousand for an entire package of not only a trust, but the entire foundation of an estate plan. It’s very reasonable.

The Grantor Trust: This trust is designed to help you bypass thousands of dollars in estate taxes. And it also helps you bypass the lengthy legal probate process, which can take many, many months — and also cost thousands in legal and court expenses associated with it.

The Grantor trust also offers the flexibility of having the right to remove the property form the Trust in the future if you should ever want to. So it has many flexible benefits and is very inexpensive.

The Non-Grantor Trust: This trust has some similar advantages, but also offers asset protection components that are not found in the Grantor Trust.

When a property is put in a Non-Grantor Trust, it cannot be removed from this Entity – and this is partially the reason for the added advantage of creditor and law suit asset protection.

Since you no longer, ‘technically,’ own the property anymore, you are not the person, who would be associated with a controlling interest to that wealth – even though you or your heirs may be involved with some, or all, of its benefits and wealth-producing capabilities

Anyone, who doesn’t have their home in a trust, with even a modest amount of equity in a property, really needs to look into it because of the many legal benefits. The ‘cost to benefit ratio’ is very advantageous.

You can find out more about how we are currently using Insider Strategies learned from my Real Estate Radio show to save homebuyers tens thousands of dollars on their home purchase and financing everyday right here in Northern Virginia, just check out my free Live online webinar, at www.HomebuyerInsideSecrets.com, that’s www.HomebuyerInsideSecrets.com.

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Your ‘Insider’ Real Estate Advisor,
Thierry Roche

Thierry Roche SFR, CDPE
Host of Talk Radio’s,
‘Inside Real Estate’

AllFairfaxVaHomesForSale.com

Re/Max Premier
703-322-0600

P.S. If you would like more detail on the types of ‘Insider’ strategies that would work best for your personal home buying needs, then call my office for a FREE, over-the-phone consultation with me.

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Call 703-222-6714. You can also e-mail me.