With less South Florida job opportunities and an ever-increasing cost of living, many Floridians are looking for a quick fix to their financial woes. The current recession has limited their ability to earn their own money, so they devise a plan to take yours. We live in the most litigious society on the planet and at the most litigious time in our history. One “get rich quick” scheme is to find a wealthy target and sue them, or at least threaten to sue them and get a fat settlement. The probability is that 20 percent of Florida citizens will be sued at least once during their lifetime. The numbers go up when limiting the incidents to residents of South Florida who earn over $100,000 per year. These people are easy targets and most of them will choose to settle rather than to incur heavy legal fees and risk a bigger payout in court.
Get The Bulls-Eye Off Of Your Back!
- Doctors, lawyers and other professionals are easy targets because the general Florida public is aware of our malpractice insurance and that the law subjects us to a higher standard of liability than other service providers.
- Real estate owners and developers of Florida properties are easy targets due to vague negligence laws when it comes to injuries that arise on property owned by another. Moreover, Florida’s landlord-tenant laws subject property owners to a greater liability when renting units.
- Product liability, environmental protection, and labor laws make South Florida business owners potentially liable to customers, visitors, employees and almost everyone else.
- Securities laws and contract laws expose stockbrokers and investment advisors to claims of liability from dissatisfied investors and partners.
How Can We Avoid This Liability?
Florida’s liability laws can hurt us if we are not aware of how they work, but our laws can also help us in that they exclude certain assets from a creditor’s reach. The laws vary from state to state as to what assets are excluded. However, one asset excluded in every state including Florida is the ownership interest in a limited partnership or limited liability company.
Any assets that you transfer into a limited partnership will be protected from any litigation not arising directly out of that partnership. Technically, you won’t own those assets and a judgment creditor will not be able to take them with a mere personal judgment against you. If you have an ownership interest in that limited partnership, it will also be exempt from the creditor’s grasp under state law. If your ownership interest is a controlling partnership interest, you will control all the assets (home, money, business) in the partnership, but you won’t own them. Perhaps even more importantly, when your potential claimant searches for an easy target in South Florida, you won’t show up on his list since the majority of your assets will be held by corporations and not viewable to a person searching for your personal assets.
Own Nothing. Control Everything.
Asset protection is not a way to avoid taxes or deceive anyone. It is merely a legal way to get that target off of your back and allow you to grow, achieve, and amass wealth without having to worry about someone else attempting to take it from you. There are a number of ways to protect your assets, your business, and your family. Limited partnerships and limited liability corporations are just two of them. For more information about how to live your life and manage your business without that target on your back, please contact the South Florida asset protection attorneys of Wild Felice & Pardo, P.A. at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com for more information and to schedule your free consultation. Let us protect what you value most.