Preserve large assets

The issue of preserving assets interests many people, especially wealthy people. There are different ways to protect your assets. This article will talk about methods that should be used to preserve large assets.

In modern times, most assets are digitalized in one way or another - bank accounts to which local authorities have access, real estate that is in public registers, etc. This means What preserve property by concealment becomes almost impossible.

However, this does not apply to situations where assets are not located in the territory of the state of residence or when the property, although it belongs to a person, is not legally its owner and such property is not registered with him.

This is due to the fact that in many states there are no public registries, which greatly complicates the search for property abroad. Also, in some states there may be no commercial registers in which you can find out the founders and beneficiaries of certain legal entities. In this regard, when a person makes a decision to protect your assets, you need to choose the right method and country of sale.

In the first case, local authorities (and creditors) will not be able to find out whether a person has assets in foreign accounts, since most countries do not provide information about the presence of money in a foreign account at the request of a creditor or even at the request of government authorities.

The exception is situations when a criminal prosecution of such a person is underway - then, as part of cooperation in the fight against money laundering and assistance in solving criminal offenses, information about existing accounts can be opened.

Thus, one can understand that even having information that someone has money in an account in a foreign bank, to receive confirmation of this, and even more so to receive money, May be very difficult.

That is why wealthy individuals often look for the opportunity to place their money abroad, which will reduce the risks of forced seizure of property.

Opening an account abroad is relatively a common procedure that is already practiced enough for a long time. Gradually, certain requirements were formed, which are the necessary minimum in order to open an account in a stable bank.

For example, to open an account you must always provide documents that confirm the identity of the account owner, his citizenship, place of residence, special attention is paid origin of money, etc.

At the same time, the account can be for personal or corporate purposes. In this case, documents on identity/citizenship and place of residence will concern the founders, it will also be necessary to provide information about the director/directors, the statutory documents of the company, etc.

In some cases instead of all founders, it is necessary to provide documents only of the ultimate beneficial owners of the company (in most countries, these are those who own 25+% of the corporate rights of the company).

However, it must be remembered that each individual bank can put forward its own requirements, since the conditions for opening a particular account are established by the bank independently, based on the regulations that stipulate minimum requirements.

In this regard, the most popular banks in developed jurisdictions may impose higher requirements (for example, additional documents, obtaining some statuses (like residency), lack of others, etc.), which may make it difficult or even impossible to open an account under certain conditions .

In addition, the so-called neobanks, i.e., are gaining great momentum. banking institutions that usually do not have physical representative offices (branches) and operate entirely online.

In most cases, neobanks, due to the fact that this type of bank is still in its development stage, have lower requirements for opening and maintaining accounts, low fees and provide certain services that traditional banks may not agree to (for example, completely remote opening accounts).

Therefore, in order to quickly and easily open a bank account in a reliable bank, the conditions of which will meet your preferences, you need to contact specialists who have experience in opening accounts and can advise on all the nuances of this process and support the opening of a turnkey account.

However, now opening an account for a non-resident in any developed jurisdiction is quite a difficult task. This is due, first of all, to the problem of the procedure for confirming the origin of assets, during which financial institutions may require large volumes of documents to confirm the legality of assets, so this issue is doubly acute in the world.

At the same time, even in the case of successful opening of an account in a foreign bank, it is necessary to remember that they can very often be subject to political influence, which will lead to the fact that the provision of certain services may be refused, additional conditions may be required to be met and may even be closed account for no apparent reason.

The second option for preserving your assets is to transfer the property to a trust. It does not have the disadvantages inherent in banking institutions.

Trusts come in different types. In this article, a “trust” is understood as a company that owns certain assets, the purpose of which is, at a minimum, to preserve the assets granted to it.

The main point is that the person who transfers the property actually ceases to be its owner (his property rights are lost from the moment the assets are transferred to the trust), the trust itself becomes the owner, and the trustee has full control over these assets.

This can be misleading, however, if you look at the trust laws of most countries, you will find that a trust is created on the basis of a trust agreement, which clearly states when, to whom and under what circumstances the assets are to be transferred. For example, you could designate that assets should be transferred to your child on their 25th birthday. Then, as soon as he turns 25, he will become the full owner of all assets, don't ongoing in trust at this time.

This small caveat means that the trustee must act as if it were his property and treat it as such. In the event of his careless or deliberately unfavorable disposal of assets for the purposes of the trust, such a trustee may be held liable.

This creates a situation where the settlor's assets are held in a trust, which means that in the event of any financial obligations assets, finding in trust, cannot be affected, since the founder is not legally their owner, which means that such property cannot be seized to pay off certain obligations.

At the same time, the property is managed by a trustee who has received written instructions from the founder (trust agreement) on how and what to do with the assets provided, as well as when to return them, and therefore, with the occurrence of certain circumstances specified in the trust agreement, all the assets of the founder can be returned to him safe and sound (depending on the terms of the agreement).

One of the most popular countries for establishing a trust is Cyprus. This country has long positioned itself as open to wealthy individuals, which also stems from the ability to protect assets through a trust. Moreover, Cyprus takes the position that it will provide any commercial information (including the founders and beneficiaries of trusts) exclusively by court order and even within the country, no one can gain unreasonable access to information about the assets of the trust, its founders, beneficiaries, etc. .

Belize is also one of the good options for setting up a trust. The country has over 30 years of experience using trusts to preserve assets. Moreover, the national legislation of Belize protects the assets of the trust founder even if a court decision is recognized in Belize, and information about trusts is not public, which is why many have used Belize as a country for establishing a trust.

More sophisticated jurisdictions include the island of Nevis, which is part of the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis.

This island is notable for the fact that, in addition to the advantages of trusts described above, it has There is some more additional advantages. For example: complete non-recognition of decisions of foreign courts, which leads to the impossibility of making a seizure if a court decision is received in any other country; complex legal proceedings in Nevis regarding the trust, which involves the deposit of US$100,000 into an account as security against malicious acts against the trust, furthermore, if the claim is not successful, then the trustee will be compensated for all losses that he incurred in connection with such proceedings; complete anonymity for the trust founder.

Trusts were originally invented in the UK and Here they have a centuries-old history and practice of use. From this we can conclude that trusts have their proper place in the UK economy, in every possible way supported current legislation and certainly not will undergo significant changes.

Having repeated successful experience in organizing the protection of assets through the creation of a trust, our company can provide accompanying services for creating a trust in the UK and other countries, finding a trustee, drawing up a trust agreement, transferring assets, as well as performing other actions necessary to protect the client’s assets. Although now many countries do not want to cooperate with non-residents, our company can always help realize the goal that our client faces.