# Protection of assets - What have you done?



## Young&Ambitious (Aug 11, 2010)

A post in the real estate forum about division of assets in common law arrangements and the post in the General forum about a lack of interesting threads made me think of this and I pose the following question to readers:

What have you done to protect your assets from eg. a current or past relationship/marriage, your kids, family members, potential liabilities etc?


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## fraser (May 15, 2010)

Our house remains in both our names. All of our investments are in my wifes name with appropriate demand loans on file. We do this for tax reasons, and a few others. There are no probate fees in Alberta so this is not a concern.


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## LBCfan (Jan 13, 2011)

Nothing.

Well, not true. I maintained a good relationship with my wife of 35 years. Between us we instilled a few values in our kids. We try not to get really drunk and injure others too often (don't want to be sued). Are we missing anything?


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## Square Root (Jan 30, 2010)

There isn't much you can do. When I was working I kept all non earning assets(cars, real estate,etc) in my wife's name as I was concerned about professional liability and also the X wife. Not sure this would have been effective. Now that I am retired investments are held in the name of the person who funded them ( although all accounts joint with spouse). non earning assets stay with wife as no reason to change at this point. 
there isn't much you can do to shelter assets from an X spouse during divorce though. The courts will decide mostly in favour of the poorer spouse regardless.


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## Young&Ambitious (Aug 11, 2010)

There are alter ego trusts, I was curious if anyone made use of them as it isn't too often you hear about those getting used it seems. At least not publicly...


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