All Forum Posts by: Brian Bradley

AP foundation is insurance with LLC's and Trusts. Talk to an Asset Protection Attorney for more detail about how this is structured and your personal assets, short term and long term goals etc. The Trust is the key component to AP. That allows for the legal transfer of assets. @Scott Smith is another great source of information beyond myself. He is also an AP Attorney who contributes a lot on this forum. Best of luck to you and your investing. 

@Colleen Ferrari talk to @Brian Eastman he is the main person in setting up self directed retirement investing accounts and how to free up that money for investing legally. 

@Josef Roberge  Good question. Internet services like legal zoom are the easiest by far to "pierce the corporate veil" and have you held personally liable. Don’t be cheap. Hire a lawyer. Specifically a lawyer who specializes in Asset Protection to ensure it is done correctly. 

All LLCs are not created equal. Basic one pagers, no-frill filings do not contain asset protection, heck I have even seen the filings with incorrect names etc. I have litigated many of these cases and loved seeing legal zoom documents.

Internet services do not provide:

• -No comprehensive advise on how to structure business and investments to achieve an overall AP plan;
• -No attorney to sere as organizer, initial member, and/or registered agent in order to maximize anonymity;
• -No sophisticated company agreement that deters creditors from taking control of your company;
• -No advise on how to move property into the LLC after it is formed;
• -No advise on how to use the LLC in conjunction with a land trust;
• -No advise on how to set up and arrange the LLCs finances, including LLC accounts, injecting capital, or loaning money to the LLC;
• -No advise on how to maintain the LLC liability barrier to prevent plaintiff's from "piercing the veil"; and
• -No follow – up questions answered by a lawyer after the LLC is formed.

You goal should NOT be to just establish an LLC as cheap and fast as possible. The goal should be to establish an LLC that includes sophisticated AP provisions beginning with the very first documents filed with the state. If not, your veil will be easily pierced and you will be held personally liable.

@Matt Moylan I think that’s a good point. Most investors don’t realize you can write and gear the language even In Insurance towards protection. But just signing blanket standard insurance firms that are not negotiated and written for your specific needs and goals is not insurance.

@Mike S. Yes they should be taken care of in the same estate plan document not separate ones. You add specific asset protection language and clauses in the estate trust. And need to make sure your LLCs and holding companies are properly merged within the trust and property transferred into the trust. Their are times to use two separate trust at different layers. But that depends on the size of the persons total assets and if they want to be hidden or not.

@christopher Smith this is an educational forum on Asset Protection. DO you have a question on Asset Protection or the Bridge Trust and how it works? Are you an investor looking for asset protection? If not then I think you have the wrong forum. Their are lots of misconceptions of AP, especially on this site from non-lawyers and those who do not specialize in this field. SO I suggest you take the info you would learn. 

There are a lot of options for Asset Protection, but the only true protection that offers FULL protection is by using a foreign trust. If you are purely domestic in the US with a domestic LLC and Domestic Trust, you are not safe and not protected from liability from judgments. This is due to the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the US Constitution.

The Bridge Trust ® is a breakthrough Asset Protection concept which “bridges” the best features of the Foreign Asset Protection Trust (FAPT) yet is even easier to use and maintain than the Domestic Asset Protection Trust (DAPT).

The Bridge Trust ® is a fully registered Asset Protection Trust with a certificate of registration from an offshore trust jurisdiction right from day one. The foreign Trustee is also in place from Day 1, and the due diligence is done on the client right up front, when it matters and when waters are calm. The Trust is then stepped back into the US for tax purposes and from the perspective of the IRS is considered a simple domestic grantor Trust.

What this means is that the client may be the Trustee, the Trust does not need a separate EIN number, it can use the client’s social security number, and the Trust need not file a separate tax return or any foreign trust compliance forms. The net effect is that The Bridge Trust ® is as easy to use and maintain as a typical Revocable Living Trust – Except if there is ever an “Event of Duress”, the foreign Trustee may be activated by declaration of the Protector and the Trust jurisdiction can be fully moved offshore with all of the protections of a full FAPT, with an inception date of when the Trust was established, not when it becomes foreign!

The Bridge Trust ® offers clients exactly these benefits:

- The Trust “Crosses the Bridge” to the World’s oldest and most tested Asset Protection Jurisdiction – The Cook Islands

- The client can stay in direct control of the Trust as the Trustee until and unless the Trust assets are threatened.

- There is no need for onerous IRS filing and reporting which accompany a typical FAPT such as the 3520, FinCen114 and numerous FATCA requirements.

- The Trust is NOT limited to using one of the DAPT jurisdiction which continue to have damaging cases and are creating a very poor track record of actually protecting assets.

- For 97% of the client, they will remain the Trustee of their Trust and may pass their assets and even the planning to their children. During their lifetime they have received the major benefit of living and working without the fear of losing their assets in a lawsuit. This is perhaps the single greatest benefit of The Bridge Trust ® .

- The annual maintenance fees are very reasonable and provide significant ongoing benefits to the clients, as well as keep your clients connected to you for annual reviews and ongoing issues and planning that they will eventually need.
- It has been our experience with thousands of clients, that The Bridge Trust ® is the best tool for the vast majority of the clients who seek our counsel. If you have questions on how to be truly protected and on a Cook Island Foreign Trust (The Bridge Trust) and how the work and how to set them up, costs, anything, write on this forum, as any questions, IM me. The entire idea is to protect your legacy and hard work that you have built.

Everybody has their own "Why" Everything I do I do because I believe that you deserve to keep what you earned and built. I believe that you should sleep well at night knowing you’re hard work and efforts are protected. I believe this because I am also an investor besides an attorney. My purpose is to reduce the fear associated with an out-of-control legal system set up on extracting assets through Legal Extortion Rackets by protecting your wealth from such attacks, while leaving you with both control and beneficial use of your assets.

The way I do this is by using the most state of the art and tested legal tools, strategies and methods that are simple to use, legal and that have been tested for over 20 years. These tools include the strategic use of domestic charging order protection (COP) entities in select jurisdictions as well as the revolutionary Bridge Trust ®.

There are a lot of options for asset protection, but the only true protection that offers FULL protection is by using a foreign trust. If you are purely domestic in the US with a domestic LLC and Domestic Trust, you are not safe and not protected from liability from judgments. This is due to the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the US Constitution.

The Bridge Trust ® is a breakthrough Asset Protection concept which “bridges” the best features of the Foreign Asset Protection Trust (FAPT) yet is even easier to use and maintain than the Domestic Asset Protection Trust (DAPT).

The Bridge Trust ® is a fully registered Asset Protection Trust with a certificate of registration from an offshore trust jurisdiction right from day one. The foreign Trustee is also in place from Day 1, and the due diligence is done on the client right up front, when it matters and when waters are calm. The Trust is then stepped back into the US for tax purposes and from the perspective of the IRS is considered a simple domestic grantor Trust.

What this means is that the client may be the Trustee, the Trust does not need a separate EIN number, it can use the client’s social security number, and the Trust need not file a separate tax return or any foreign trust compliance forms. The net effect is that The Bridge Trust ® is as easy to use and maintain as a typical Revocable Living Trust – Except if there is ever an “Event of Duress”, the foreign Trustee may be activated by declaration of the Protector and the Trust jurisdiction can be fully moved offshore with all of the protections of a full FAPT, with an inception date of when the Trust was established, not when it becomes foreign!

The Bridge Trust ® offers clients exactly these benefits:

- The Trust “Crosses the Bridge” to the World’s oldest and most tested Asset Protection Jurisdiction – The Cook Islands

- The client can stay in direct control of the Trust as the Trustee until and unless the Trust assets are threatened.

- There is no need for onerous IRS filing and reporting which accompany a typical FAPT such as the 3520, FinCen114 and numerous FATCA requirements.

- The Trust is NOT limited to using one of the DAPT jurisdiction which continue to have damaging cases and are creating a very poor track record of actually protecting assets.

- For 97% of the client, they will remain the Trustee of their Trust and may pass their assets and even the planning to their children. During their lifetime they have received the major benefit of living and working without the fear of losing their assets in a lawsuit. This is perhaps the single greatest benefit of The Bridge Trust ® .

- The annual maintenance fees are very reasonable and provide significant ongoing benefits to the clients, as well as keep your clients connected to you for annual reviews and ongoing issues and planning that they will eventually need.
- It has been our experience with thousands of clients, that The Bridge Trust ® is the best tool for the vast majority of the clients who seek our counsel. If you have questions on how to be truly protected and on a Cook Island Foreign Trust (The Bridge Trust) and how the work and how to set them up, costs, anything, write on this forum, as any questions, IM me. The entire idea is to protect your legacy and hard work that you have built. 

Everybody has their own "Why" Everything I do I do because I believe that you deserve to keep what you earned and built. I believe that you should sleep well at night knowing you’re hard work and efforts are protected. I believe this because I am also an investor besides an attorney. My purpose is to reduce the fear associated with an out-of-control legal system set up on extracting assets through Legal Extortion Rackets by protecting your wealth from such attacks, while leaving you with both control and beneficial use of your assets.

The way I do this is by using the most state of the art and tested legal tools, strategies and methods that are simple to use, legal and that have been tested for over 20 years. These tools include the strategic use of domestic charging order protection (COP) entities in select jurisdictions as well as the revolutionary Bridge Trust ®.

@Anthony White that is awesome and inspiring. If you want to chat on keeping that hard work protected IM me. Very happy for you.

The main goal of AP is to have your name on nothing, but benefit from everything. 

It's not just a matter of having your name on the LLC to worry about if that will pierce it or not. That can be done a bunch of other ways. Just having an LLC is a misconception that it alone will protect you. Alone it will NOT just protect you automatically, and the veil can be very easily pierced. I get this question or comment a lot and read it a lot (I have an LLC I am good to go etc). Wrong, you are not, and it does not matter if its a typical LLC, LP or Series LLC. I have structured them all, and litigated against them, and for them. Nobody is perfect, and a lot will depend on the personal view of the judge or bias of the jury (out of our control). A HUGE way to pierce the veil is poor documentation, commingling of funds, failing to adhere to corporate formalities, major deviations from scope of business. 

I love insurance and LLC and think that having BOTH is the STARTING point to AP and an AP plan. but as in building a house, it is just the foundation for a stronger house. AP is about creating barriers. Their is no such thing as a bulletproof plan to avoid personal liability so don't get caught up on ur name being on it, unless anamunity is a goal? The more fences and plaintiff and his attorney have to jump through, and the more money they have to spend, or time and resources to get to you, the better protected you are.

An LLC is a useful devise in separating business from personal affairs. But it is just one of the tools in the system that has to be joined properly with other tools from its initial filling to create a legal and enforceable AP system. Otherwise it will be useless.

The goal should be to have insurance and as much as you can get (even an umbrella policy), AND establish an LLC that works with a Asset Management Liability Company, that then works with a Domestic Trust and eventually when you have enough in assets to warrant it (500k-1.5M in assets) a Foreign Cook Trust that can be used if an event tiggers the foreign trust. Then you are protected.

Just having your name on the LLC is not that big a deal, unless you want to be invisible. Then you need a Wyoming Anonymity Trust.