Corporate Shield Of Liability Case Study

Corporate Shield of Liability

For centuries business structures have been utilized for Asset Protection Planning. A corporation is normally a very effective way to shield one's personal assets from liability resulting from the operation of a business. Normally, the shareholders of the corporation are only liable to the extent of their investment in the corporation. However, officers, directors and employees can be personally liable for their conduct relative to the operation of the business and, therefore, may want to consider other alternative means of Asset Protection with respect to their personal assets. Over the last few decades, expanding theories of liability and the proliferation of litigation has given increased emphasis to Asset

LLCs are state chartered entities that provide a shield of protection similar to the corporate shield, but are treated for tax purposes as either a sole proprietorship or partnership. LLCs are extensively used to hold real estate assets because they combine the protection aspects of a corporation with the tax benefits of a partnership or proprietorship. Because of the tremendous liability potential of real estate activities, serous consideration has to be given to holding real estate (especially income producing real estate) in

The charging order prevents the creditor from reaching the LLC assets. The creditor is limited to a court order charging the interest of the member/debtor so that if any distributions are made from the LLC to the member, they have to be distributed to the creditor. Normally, the creditor gets only the economic rights to the distributions not the voting rights or other non economic rights of the LLC Member. The application of the charging order in any particular case will depend on the state's statutory provisions and case law treating the charging order subject. The benefit of the charging order remedy to the owner of the LLC is that the assets within the LLC are protected from the outright seizure by the creditor who is limited only to distributions that may not be made pursuant to the discretionary right of the manager to withhold such distributions. In other words, assets that would be otherwise attractive to a judgment creditor become much more unattractive if they are held within a limited liability company where the charging order is the exclusive