An Unusual Asset Protection Strategy

There are a lot of ways to protect your assets from potential creditors. The key to success for the most part is to take action before the creditors claims are real. If you wait, as too many people do, most of the actions you can take will be viewed as a fraud on the creditors and reversed by courts. Here’s a tale of a wealthy many who made some mistakes, and now is likely to go to jail in addition to losing judgments in various court actions.

The solution his lawyers came up with is for him to adopt his girlfriend as his daughter. The man and his lawyers say that he didn’t wait too long to take asset protection and estate planning actions, and the purpose of these moves isn’t to avoid paying damages in the coming lawsuits. Instead, the trust was created and funded many years ago. The point of the move is to ensure his girlfriend and her two young children from another marriage are taken care of, along with his children who also are beneficiaries of the trust. They also say the move gives input into the decisions made by the trustee. The man isn’t happy with the actions the trustee is taking with trust assets, and his children are too young to object. Their mother apparently is pushing the trustee to make the changes. Adopting the adult girlfriend as his daughter makes her a beneficiary and provides a strong voice to complain to the trustees about their proposed actions.

It’s unique, and apparently created quite a firestorm in the local media.