The law protects your property
Saturday, August 22nd, 2009The law protects your property but only up to a certain extent. Property owners generally have the right to prevent others from taking their property against their will (Singer, Property Law, 1993). However, after the legal stumbling blocks are removed, your unprotected property becomes vulnerable to predators unless you have institutionalized a strong secondary line of defense.
Corporations, family limited partnerships, and trusts are legal instruments of asset protection that are sometimes called “sanctuaries,”“shelters, “or “havens.” These devices require more effort, time1 planning and documentation to set up, but the long-term beneficial effects they provide can rescue your properties from an otherwise dreadful ending. Many of us live in fear of losing everything we have saved and acquired. Careful planning is a cure to our worries concerning the potential loss of our properties.
The proceeds of crime are not protected from seizure and forfeiture. Criminals will not find refuge in corporations, limited partnerships, .trusts and banks. Plunderers, kidnappers, gambling lords, money launderers, drug lords, swindlers, cyber criminals, and other underworld persons will find it useless to insulate their ill-gotten wealth and their interests, incomes and assets, including shares of stocks derived from the deposit or investment of these properties.
Once unveiled, these illegally acquired assets may be frozen, seized, and forfeited in favor of the State. In the case of money laundering, the court may order the convicted offender to pay an amount equal to the value of the monetary instrument or property if the order of forfeiture of the property (that is the subject of a money laundering offense) cannot be enforced because the property has been concealed, removed, converted or transferred to another jurisdiction to avoid its forfeiture .