“I saw a bank that said "24 Hour Banking", but I don't have that much time”
- Stephen Wright

Tough times call for desperate measures.

And when your creditors come knocking at your door – you need to know that you’re not going to lose everything (expect the shirt on your back).

And that’s why, this week, I spoke to one of our top financial contacts, Mark Fuhr. And he gave me some insider tips, that will keep your creditors at bay! Here’s what he revealed…

It's vitally important to make sure your assets are protected from creditors in the event of any unforeseen eventuality like insolvency, disability or divorce. With the correct estate planning it's easy to protect these assets over time!
 
There are a number of options you might consider to protect your assets from creditors. But as far as asset protection goes a Trust or a number of Trusts is the ideal vehicle for you. The reasons are as follows:

By placing your assets in Trust, you distance yourself from the assets. This means if you are sued in your personal capacity your creditors will not be able to attach the assets in the Trust as the assets do not belong to you.
 
By establishing a Trust or a number of Trusts to separate your personal assets from your business assets (or even separate your business assets from the trading operations of the business) you would be able to protect all the above assets over time from creditors. A Trust is the only vehicle you can use to secure your assets in this way. And it's not very expensive to run.

4 Important Trust tips you should know

1. Create the ideal Trust: The Trust you should establish is a Discretionary Inter Vivos Trust (which distances you from your assets because it proves that you do not have total control over them). You must also have a minimum of three trustees (one must be an independent trustee i.e. someone like your accountant, your attorney, your financial planner or even a friend).
2. When naming your Trust: I would not recommend that you call the Trust after your own family name i.e. the Mark Fuhr family Trust or the Fuhr family Trust. The reason is when creditors are doing a name search the name of the Trust will appear and this is not what we want from an asset protection point of view.
3. When registering your Trust: Please note that Trusts are registered at the Master of the High Court and not at the registrar of companies. This means you can call a Trust any name that you want to. This also means you could have fifty Trusts called the Colt family Trust, and there would be no problem. You can also change the name of the Trust at any time provided the Trust deed says so. What will not change would be the beneficiaries or the Trust number.
4. Bank account of the Trust: I would also recommend that the bank account of the Trust not be opened at the same bank that you normally bank with. If the Trust was at a different bank and under a name that was not related to you it would be extremely difficult for another bank to identify that you do have a Trust. What is of utmost importance, especially as far as the banks are concerned, is that you're not forced by the bank to disclose what assets are in your Trust.

There's nothing more devastating than to see the sheriff auctioning off assets. Act on the information above now by making an appointment with your attorney to set up a Trust - and you'll never have to!