Is Your Family Wealth Exposed?
You do not need to be expecting a divorce in your family or your children's families or facing a dispute for these questions to matter.
If you own a successful business, hold substantial investments personally, have children who may eventually inherit significant wealth, own assets in more than one country, or simply aren't completely certain what happens to everything after it leaves your hands, there may be questions worth examining now.
You may not need a Foundation, you may not need an offshore structure at all.
But before deciding whether anything needs to change, it makes sense to identify where potential exposures may exist.
The Five Stages of Building Your Family Wealth Firewall™
- Firewall Exposure Audit™: Identify what may be exposed.
Understand your existing assets, ownership structures, family circumstances, jurisdictions and potential vulnerabilities before considering solutions. - Firewall Stress Test™: Ask, "What happens if...?"
Examine how existing arrangements might behave under divorce, death, creditor problems, relocation, tax-residency changes or future inheritance. - Firewall Blueprint™: Determine what, if anything, should change.
Where specialist planning is appropriate, relevant professionals develop recommendations suited to the family and jurisdictions involved. - Firewall Implementation™: Put the agreed strategy in place.
The appropriate professionals establish any legal, corporate, succession or other arrangements that are agreed upon. - Annual Firewall Review™: Because circumstances change.
Families, businesses, assets, countries and tax laws change. The Firewall should evolve with them.
You Don't Need to Know the Solution Before You Start
You do not need to know whether the answer involves a trust, Foundation, matrimonial planning, succession arrangements, corporate restructuring or no structural change at all.
And you do not need to know which professional you should speak to first.
That is part of what the Firewall process is designed to establish.
MauritiusWealth.mu maintains relationships with experienced legal, tax, corporate, banking, immigration and international structuring professionals in Mauritius, South Africa and other jurisdictions.
Your first step is not choosing a structure, it is identifying what you are trying to protect and where the potential exposures may be.
START MY FIREWALL EXPOSURE AUDIT™
Begin by identifying the potential exposures. No structure or solution is presumed in advance.
Scott Oliver is a retired British writer and independent researcher living in Mauritius. A former Royal Marines Commando and former Wall Street investment professional, he has spent more than four decades living and working internationally across 14 countries. During that time, he worked extensively in international wealth management, cross-border asset protection, international business structuring and global residency planning.
Today, Scott's focus is no longer on managing money or providing professional advice. Instead, through MauritiusWealth.mu, he writes independent educational articles designed to help successful African business owners ask better questions, make better decisions and, when appropriate, identify the right expertise to help protect everything they have spent a lifetime building.
His articles are published solely for general educational and informational purposes and should not be regarded as legal, financial, tax, immigration, investment or other professional advice. Every business owner's circumstances are unique, and readers requiring professional assistance should always consult an appropriately qualified and licensed professional.