{"id":372,"date":"2025-04-08T11:18:46","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T11:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.walstrom.tech\/AssetsProtectionCurrentProduction\/?page_id=372"},"modified":"2025-04-11T09:13:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T09:13:38","slug":"friendly-lien-guide","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/staging.walstrom.tech\/AssetsProtectionCurrentProduction\/friendly-lien-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Friendly Lien – Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Friendly Lien – Guide<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Protecting Your Assets with Friendly Liens<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Friendly liens are a smart and effective way to shield the equity in your real estate or business assets. Through equity stripping, we help you create strategic liens\u2014such as Mortgages or Deeds of Trust for real estate, or UCC-1 filings for business assets\u2014that can deter potential creditors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why It Matters<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When someone is considering legal action or a claim against you, one of the first things they often do is check for available equity in your assets. If your property or business holdings show a lot of untapped equity, they become an attractive target. The same applies to equipment, inventory, or other business assets\u2014if they look unencumbered, they\u2019re vulnerable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By strategically placing liens on these assets, you essentially make them look financially tied up. This discourages would-be creditors from pursuing them, often causing them to look elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Making the Strategy Work<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There are many equity stripping programs online, but many lack real economic substance or involve unknown third parties holding the lien\u2014something that can backfire if challenged in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes our approach different is that it\u2019s built on solid business rationale. We use capitalization notes, where you fund a separate entity that places the lien. As long as you make regular payments on the note, everything holds up legally and economically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you ever need to explain the setup to a judge, it should make perfect sense\u2014because it\u2019s based on real transactions, real structure, and a valid business purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tax Implications<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There are no unusual tax concerns here. The entity holding the lien is either owned by you or passes income through to you, so it\u2019s essentially a wash: what you pay on one side is income on the other. In short, you\u2019re just moving money from one pocket to another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Setting Up the Lien Entity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We usually form a new entity specifically for placing the lien. We prefer jurisdictions that don\u2019t require the public disclosure of owners or managers, and we choose names that sound like legitimate financial institutions. This adds an extra layer of privacy and credibility to the structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You\u2019ve Got to Follow Through<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For the friendly lien to stand up to scrutiny, you must respect the structure. That means making regular payments, even if the entity is owned or controlled by you. If you don\u2019t treat the structure seriously, neither will a judge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when followed correctly, our clients have seen this method act as a powerful tool for protecting their wealth from outside threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What You\u2019ll Need to Provide<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To get started, we\u2019ll need to form the lien-holding entity and have you fund it with a note. Then we\u2019ll secure that note with liens on your assets\u2014via a mortgage, deed of trust, or UCC-1 filing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll need to provide:<\/p>\n\n\n\n