Marnie and Lane came to us with a parent’s second-worst nightmare. Their 16-year-old son, Lane Jr., was involved in an illegal street race. Junior’s car collided with a competitor. Junior sustained minor injuries, while the other driver suffered significant injuries.
The family of the other kid sued Marnie and Lane for negligent entrustment of a car to a minor child. We have seen over 30 lawsuits like this over the past ten years alone. The lawsuit sought over $10 million in damages. Marnie and Lane had managed to accumulate a nice net worth – it was almost $10 million. They were both in their mid-50s and realized that in the work years they have remaining they would never be able to reaccumulate such a nest egg.
They came to us without much hope – the suit had already been filed. While we always encourage clients to engage in proactive asset protection planning, most come to us after something bad has already happened.
We had suggested several possible courses of action, and to our surprise, Marnie and Lane picked a fairly drastic course of action. They sold their California assets, pulled up the stakes and moved to Florida. They purchased a nice residence in Florida and moved the remaining assets into an offshore structure. This proved to be a highly effective strategy. The residence was protected by Florida’s unlimited homestead exemption, and offshore assets are almost always unreachable. The plaintiff quickly ceased their efforts to recover from Marnie and Lane personally and settled within the insurance limits.
If your family’s assets may be at risk, contact Maximum Asset Protection today at (818) 933-3838 and learn more about how we can help you take the right steps to protect your assets.
