Asset Protection
The right plan, made early, can be highly effective in protecting your assets before problems arise. Let us take a look at your situation and provide guidance on how to keep your family's assets in the family.
Plan Before You Need To
Asset protection planning is only as effective as it is timely. Transferring assets after a lawsuit is filed, after a creditor has a claim, or after a long-term care crisis begins is not protection.
Asset protection works by using legal structures (trusts, entities, and ownership arrangements) that put your assets out of reach of future claims while you continue to benefit from them in appropriate ways.
Some tools at your disposal might be the following:
Irrevocable trusts. Conveying ownership out of your own name can make it harder for future creditors to make claims against your property. When it comes to MassHealth planning, irrevocable trusts can strengthen Medicaid eligibility by starting the five-year look-back period.
Massachusetts Homestead. Massachusetts law allows homeowners to declare a homestead on their primary residence, protecting up to $1,000,000 of equity from most creditor claims. Filing the declaration is simple, inexpensive, and something every Massachusetts homeowner should do. If you have not done this, we can walk you through it.
Inherited trusts for your heirs. When you leave assets to your children in trust rather than outright, those assets are protected from your children's future creditors, divorcing spouses, and their own poor decisions, for as long as the trust remains in place. This is one of the most powerful and underused features of a well-designed estate plan.
The best strategy for protecting your assets is getting started early, not waiting until the right tools are no longer available to you.
Asset Protection and Long-Term Care
One of the most predictable threats to a family's assets is the cost of long-term care, with some nursing homes in Massachusetts exceeding $14,000 per month. Planning five years ahead of any anticipated care need, whether via a trust or other structure, can protect what you have worked to accumulate.