Fatal Errors to Avoid

An international strategy must be correctly structured and administered to be effective. Many high profile cases have illustrated that international trusts can fail and in most of those isolated cases the failure has been the result of poor planning and implementation. Key factors in a successful international strategy include the following:

• Control: Don't retain control of your own trust because if a U.S. court determines that a trust is a sham, all protection will be lost. A trustee must control any trust without any influence of its grantor.
• Keep your assets internationally based: Trust assets must be maintained outside of the U.S. so that they cannot be seized.
• Multiple procedural safeguards: Every trust must include every possible protective safeguard from the moment of its first drafting to a comprehensive annual review.

In the rare instance of a failed international trust, one or more of the preceding axioms were not followed. The result was an order by a U.S. court to a U.S. citizen and resident to repatriate the assets in the face of contempt charges and other violations of law. But a U.S. court cannot force a citizen to pay a creditor if the grantor does not have control over a trust and that's why the design and implementation of an international strategy is so important and requires expert legal oversight that is undertaken years in advance of any debt, claim or threat.

CHOOSE THE RIGHT ASSET PROTECTION ATTORNEY!