A Guide To Asset Protection Planning In Nevada

As you approach retirement, ensuring that your assets remain intact and accessible is more important than ever. Retirement assets are typically used as a primary source of income once you stop working. However, various threats such as death, divorce, taxes, or legal action can eat into your assets, if not prevent them from being available altogether.

In this article, explore some key strategies and considerations for asset protection planning in Nevada and safeguarding your financial future, including:

• Common risks to retirement assets,
• Common ways to alleviate these risks, and
• Advantages to hiring a lawyer to navigate retirement asset management.

What Are Potential Risks To My Assets?

Throughout your lifetime, your assets may face significant vulnerability to several threats, including litigation from creditors, settlements in divorce proceedings, and various tax obligations.

Although your assets’ status technically changes after death, the same threats to them – creditor claims, divorce settlements, and estate taxes – still exist. For example, if you place your assets in a trust, your beneficiaries may face these threats. Nevertheless, a trust can still be very advantageous to safeguarding your beneficiaries against potential risks.

What Are The Most Common Ways I Can Protect My Assets?

The most frequent strategy for asset protection planning in Nevada is to place assets in retirement accounts like IRAs and 401Ks. 401Ks have higher exemption limits. Some people make the mistake of transferring property to a spouse or child for safekeeping, despite this approach rarely being secure or reliable.

Many people turn to a spendthrift trust to create a more sophisticated and effective asset protection plan. By placing assets in the trust and designating an independent third party to manage them, the trust provides a way to separate ownership from control and protect assets from potential threats such as bankruptcy or creditor claims. We specialize in designing comprehensive asset protection plans that utilize advanced legal strategies like spendthrift trusts to safeguard your financial future.

What Is Ineffective In Protecting My Assets?

Giving away your assets will not prevent them from being seized if you face a potential threat, such as a lawsuit or creditor claim. Therefore, taking a more strategic and long-term approach to asset protection is paramount. For instance, creating an LLC is a standard asset protection structure, but it only works if you properly maintain the LLC or corporation. Likewise, transferring assets to your spouse is not a wise solution. To effectively safeguard your assets, it is essential to consult with an experienced asset protection lawyer who can guide you through the various legal strategies available to protect your assets from risks you may face.

What Assets Do I Need To Protect In Nevada?

Under Nevada state and federal laws, certain exemptions protect your assets in the event of bankruptcy or creditor claims. However, these exemptions are limited, with a homestead exemption of just over $600,000, a vehicle equity exemption of up to $15,000, and a $10,000 wild card exemption for personal property. Additional protections may be necessary for those with personal property valued over $25,000 and significant equity. Although the homestead exemption only applies to homes with over $600,000 in equity, this threshold can be reached quickly.

It is worth noting that these assets – the $10,000 wild card, $15,000 vehicle equity, and homestead – are entirely exempt from creditors.

What Goals Should I Have When Planning Asset Protection?

The primary objective is to safeguard your assets, ensuring they remain under your control and available for use despite the various risks you may encounter. To achieve this, the typical approach is to separate ownership from control, in essence allowing you to own nothing while maintaining control over everything.

When Is The Best Time To Plan The Protection Of My Assets?

In Nevada, there is a waiting period of two years for transfers to a trust or five years for transfers to other entities. It is important to understand that despite taking the necessary steps for protection planning, your assets may still be accessible to creditors during this period. Therefore, it is crucial to start planning before any potential claims arise, and ideally before the assets are even acquired, in order to establish the structure and begin the clock ticking on the waiting period.

Do I Need To Update My Asset Protection Plan?

While it is important, though unnecessary, to update your asset protection plan after significant life events like divorce, marriage, or having a child, the structure itself is self-sustaining as long as it is correctly set up. Essentially, it is a one-time setup you can forget about if you follow the design and do not undergo any significant life changes.

What Are Some Common Pitfalls People Encounter When Managing Asset Protection Without An Attorney?

Nowadays, it is widely known that creating an LLC can help prevent some liability from affecting you. However, it becomes useless if you do not maintain and respect the LLC properly. Without an attorney, people may make the mistake of just forming an LLC that doesn’t operate as an independent entity, leaving them with no protection at all.

Others try to imitate a trust by giving property to a third party for safekeeping, such as their spouse or child, but this kind of trust is not recognized and offers no real protection. Such directionless work does not ultimately benefit you and offers little to no real protection.

How Can Your Firm Help Me Protect My Assets?

When we set up an asset protection structure, we assist you with forming and maintaining your entities and placing your assets into a trust in a recognized and respected way. We handle all associated tasks for you intending to alleviate the burden of annual monitoring and maintenance. As a trustee of your asset protection trust, in some cases, you can rest assured that we know how to handle claims when they arise and do so with your best interest at heart.

For more information on Asset Protection Planning In Nevada State, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (702) 703-1540 today.