This is a special episode because we’re going to talk about asset protection, but not asset protection from the basics. We’re going to get a little more advanced. So I wanted to bring a guest back on that ahead a few years ago, and he is a very smart guy. He’s actually one of Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad advisors. In fact, he’s Robert Kiyosaki’s asset protection attorney, a very smart guy that can talk to you about corporate governance and the different states and how they apply to asset protection and how to set up your structure and what to do. What not to do the thing is is none of us want to ever be in a lawsuit and nobody wants to get sued. But the problem, I think some people run into is they know they need to put an asset protection plan in place and they put it off, but they understand why they need it.
And then the day comes where they get into trouble, or they have some sort of lawsuit crop up and they realize, Oh my, I didn’t put an asset protection plan in place, or I didn’t protect a particular asset or I kind of dried my feet and this is something I should have done. The reality is is that it is not complicated to set up. It doesn’t take a long time. It is not an expensive thing to do. And it really is a lot of simplicity. It’s mostly paperwork and a couple of formalities and just some renewals that you do every year. And really your attorney can take care of that. You don’t even have to do it. You could just put it in your calendar, so you know about it, but what happens if you don’t have that in place? So I wanted to bring Garrett Sutton on today and talk to him about some of the stuff about asset protection, and also ask him a few more advanced questions as it relates to asset protection planning and what people should do, and maybe the land mines they step on and the pitfalls they fall into along the way.
So maybe, you know what is the biggest mistake? Let’s talk about that. So with that, let me bring my guest on, and I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you haven’t subscribed to the show already, please go ahead and do that and let’s get started.
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All right, guys, it’s my pleasure to introduce a very special guest today. It’s Garrett Sutton and Garrett has been practicing corporate law for more than 35 years. He’s assisted entrepreneurs and real estate investors around the world and protecting their assets, maximizing their financial goals through his two companies, corporate direct and Sutton Law Center, as you probably know, is a highly sought after guest speaker. And he serves as a member on the elite group of rich dad advisors for the bestselling author, Robert Kiyosaki, and with that Garrett, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Marco. Good to be with you again.
It was great having you back on, it’s been, I think a couple of years since I’ve had you on. So you are long overdue and the whole topic of corporate governance and asset protection never goes away. It’s something that we just deal with, whether foreground or background all the time, especially if you’re a business for a real estate investor. So let’s get into that maybe a little bit more advanced stuff today. And I know you can talk for hours about this, but we’re not going to torture you like that.
Torture your listeners.
Torture them either. Let’s start off with you. Most people, I think know who you are or at least I’ve heard of you. But for those that really don’t know you let’s share with our listeners a little bit about yourself and what you do.
Well briefly, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and went to Berkeley and then went across the Bay to Hastings Law School in San Francisco. And I just always liked corporate law. It was my favorite course in law school. And after I got out, I practiced law in San Francisco and Washington DC. And then, you know, the big cities got to me. And so I decided to move to Reno which is a nice small city. And also Nevada has the best corporate law in the country. So it was a great fit for me. And then I became associated with Robert Kiyosaki and the rich dad group. And since 2000, they’ve had me write these books. They’ve had me travel with Robert, not only in the US but around the world, teaching financial education. And that’s been really rewarding. So for the last 20 years, I’ve been working with people, just talking to people on the phone about how we can protect their assets in the United States.
I counted six books on Amazon, and I know you mentioned just before we started recording here that you have a seventh book coming out, but correct me if I’m wrong, you have six published books, right?
Six in the rich dad series. And then I have three on my own that are published outside of the rich dad series. So nine. So this will be my 10th.
Oh, wow. Okay. I think I have three or four on my bookshelf over there. And they’re all great books. By the way. I actually did an Ask Marco episode yesterday and I was a highly recommending one of your books regarding, you know, setting up LLCs and whatnot. It’s a white cover book. I forgot the title, exact title of it. But someone was asking a question about asset protection and how do I get started and really was more about forming a partnership. Maybe we could talk about that before I get to that question. Let’s just talk about asset protection in general. So, you know, investors, especially real estate investors need it. I mean, we’re in a very litigious society. It seems like we have more attorneys than we have anybody else in this country, but sorry. Yeah. That’s okay. You know, damned if you do damn if you don’t, we need you guys, right. But you know, we need asset protection. That’s the bottom line. And the thing is, is it’s like insurance, it’s something you hope you never have to rely on, but it’s there in case you need it. Do you feel investors are over-complicating the subject of asset protection? Is that really a fair question?
You know, to a certain extent, that’s a really good observation. Marco, a lot of people just seem to be overwhelmed by it and we try and make it really simple. I want you to understand what we’re doing, why we’re setting the LLC, maybe why we add a Wyoming LLC, to own the other ones. We try and break it down. So it’s simple and easily maintained cause you have to maintain on an ongoing basis. So, you know, at a cocktail party, I want you to say, Oh, this asset protection stuff is really difficult, but between you and I, I want you to realize that this is very easy. You don’t want to overthink it or make it too complicated. Basically you are trying to protect yourself from a legal system that allows attorneys to Sue on a contingency basis, right? The attorneys will put up all the time and energy and they get a percentage of what they collect. So we have an incentive for attorneys to sue and we’re not going to change that system many times soon. So we have to operate within it by using LLCs and corporations to protect ourselves. And it’s really that simple.
So, and I can speak from experience that asset protection really isn’t expensive. Some people think that it’s very expensive, but it’s not because you just need a competent attorney to put together the structures that you need to essentially shelter your assets and provide anonymity. Am I missing something in that?
You’re not, I mean, we set up the corporation, it’s very affordable or the yellow tea. And then once it’s set up that information cost goes away and you just have an annual fee that you paid to the state where the LLC is located and you have the requirement to do minutes every year, showing that you had a meeting. And you know, there are a couple of other little formalities, but that’s about it. It’s not a great burden to have these LLCs. Now you do need to work with your CPA. You’re going to file unless it’s a single member, one owner, LLC, you’re going to file a tax return in the name of the LLC, but you’d have to file a tax return anyway, for that income. It’s not like this as anything more burdensome than you already have the requirement to file your taxes.
And really it’s just, I mean, most of these entities are considered disregarded, so they’re really filing a form, but they’re not essentially filing their own tax returns. All that income flows up to the next level, whatever that is above it could be. You could be a holding company. There’s something above it. And ultimately you will profit at the end of that chain, but you’re right. It’s really just a matter of filing a form than having a set of books for each of those entities. Right?
Correct. And a separate, you really should have a separate bank account for each LLC. But that’s not difficult
Besides you’re going to have a tax advisor and, or a bookkeeper that is going to manage that for you. So it’s not like you’re going to be bogged down in the mess of it if you will. So, you know, I think some people think about the tax and financing implications of having asset protection. For example, if they own a property or just purchased the property and they transfer it to an LLC because they don’t want a whole title personally, which obviously makes sense. Some people think that there’s going to be some sort of property tax or they’re going to get charged a transfer tax or a fee. Is that, how often do you find that happens? I mean, I don’t see that as being the case.
Well, most states have an exception when you transfer title from your name to your LLC, right? You haven’t sold the property. It’s just going from you to you through your LLC. The one tough state is Pennsylvania. When you transfer from your name into your LLC, there’s a 2% transfer tax in the state of Pennsylvania. So if you’re going to be buying a property in Pennsylvania, it’s great. If you can take title in the LLC right off the bat to avoid that transfer tax.
Is that the only state that charges a transfer tax, even to an LLC?
Some states might have small amounts, but for example, in Nevada, when you transfer from your name into the LLC, there’s no transfer tax. There’s an exception. Well, let’s say the bank says you gotta refinance. All right. And we’ve got to pull the name of the property out of the LLC back and urinate before we’ll apply the loan. In that case, Nevada has a transfer tax. When you go from your LLC back to you. So each state has its own rules and most real estate brokers are going to notice or your CPA in that state. So there are a little different rules for transfer taxes around the country. But I would say a majority of states and over the majority of the states have an exception. When you transfer from you to your LLC.
While we’re on the topic of taxes, are there negative tax consequences to having an asset protection plan in place? Or is it really just the legal side of it all?
It’s really the legal side, Marco. I mean the tax situation, it’s going to be the same in many cases, if you own it through an LLC or own it in your individual name right now, the audit risk is higher. If you have, if you operate in your individual name, so using an LLC or corporation, you have a lower audit risk. So that is a, I guess, a tax advantage. You know, the IRS says, look, if you’re serious about business and real estate, why wouldn’t you take title in an LLC, right? If titles in your individual name and you’re running businesses, a sole proprietor, then they have this perception that you may be fudging the books. And so they audit those entities, sole proprietorships and you know individual named properties at a much greater rate than LLCs and corporations.
That’s really a schedule C addendum to your 1040. So yeah, so really that’s the red flag is the more stuff you have on your schedule C the more likely you’re going to be flagged for an audit. Right? Right. You want to stay off of that. Absolutely. So now, you know, a lot of people think about, okay, what are the negative implications of having an asset protection plan in place? When it comes to me borrowing because you know, conventional financing, a lot of lenders want to lend to you as the borrower and, you know, have the property as collateral. And they don’t like the idea, especially Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, of having your property in an LLC. They, in fact, they probably don’t really want you do that. But the fact is, is that everybody does right.
Everybody does it. And I would argue that they’re better protected having it in an LLC. Right? You get sued. They’re their, a loan obligation. Their first deed of trust is better protected if it’s in an LLC, but here’s the magic language Marco that you would use. If you run into a situation where someone says, Oh, you can’t transfer into an LLC. Here’s the thing. When you transfer from your name into the LLC, the bank still has that first deed of trust, right. That doesn’t go away. The bank still has your personal guarantee that doesn’t go away. And so the term you use is continuity of obligation, right? The bank, there’s still a continuing obligation on your part to pay the bank. It doesn’t go away if you put it in an LLC. And so most people just do it. I, in all these years, Marco, I just have never seen a bank come back and say, we don’t like you having title in the LLC. Right. It just never happens. And so to my point, the bank is better protected if you do have it in an LLC. So we just don’t see it. And if a bank gives you problems, you know, I don’t even ask. I tell my clients, not even ask the bank. I mean, just do the transfer and pay the mortgage with an LLC check. And over time they’re waiving their argument. They accepted payment from the LLC.
Right. That’s a good trick.
So, yeah. But it just never is an issue. And so the reason we don’t ask the bank is, you know, is it better to ask permission or forgiveness.
Exactly, right. Yeah. Yeah. I think just, there’s a lot of so-called gurus and people out there that have for years talked about and put fear in people with the do on sale clause, that’s standard in mortgage agreements. But the reality is, is the bank just wants to be paid. As long as they’re getting paid every month, they’re not going to exercise their due on sale clause. It’s what you just said. It’s the continuity of payment, continuity of the contract.
Right. And also you haven’t sold the property. Right. You know, the do on sale clause is involved when you sell the property to a third party. When you transfer from you to your LLC, you haven’t sold the property. You’ve just changed how you’ve helped them.
Right. So, Garrett, do you get involved in trusts at all? Is that your world?
No. I do not do the estate planning. We don’t do the trust work. We refer that to other people. So we just focus on setting up the corporations and LLCs and almost as importantly, maintaining them, right. You’ve got to maintain them on an ongoing basis or you can lose your protection. So we just focus on that and we don’t set up land trusts, land trusts do not offer asset protection. So we just have an aversion to setting up the land, trust people on the internet, promote these. Like they’re the, you know, God’s greatest gift to entities and they’re not right. They just don’t offer asset protection. Right.
I totally agree. The reality is land trusts are good for a layer of anonymity, but they have zero asset protection, you know, power. So you just got to keep those two things in mind.
Well, and the other thing about land trust anonymity is if you get sued by a tenant, right, you want that you want notice of that lawsuit. If it’s too anonymous and they can’t find you anywhere, then they get to publish notice in the newspaper. And you may not even get notice of that. So this whole idea of anonymity on these claims is really when you get sued by a tenant, you don’t want them running all over the place. Cause eventually they can publish notice in the newspaper and you’ll, they’ll get a default judgment against you. You’ll lose. You want someone to receive that notice of a lawsuit so that you can notify the insurance company. If you go to the insurance company and say, well, I was using land trust anonymity, and they never found me. But then they publish notice in the newspaper of the lawsuit, the insurance company is going. We don’t have to honor that claim. You didn’t give us timely notice. We didn’t have a chance to defend you in court. So the idea of land trust in anonymity really doesn’t match up with the realities of needing to understand if you’ve ever been sued.
So I know this is a little off-topic, but if you had a property in a land trust that was in your LLC or for asset protection purposes, and some sort of issue or lawsuit came up with a tenant, wouldn’t there be a trustee named on that land trust to serve notice to. And it would be their responsibility to pass that on to you as the beneficiary?
Yeah. There would be a trustee, but so many of these promoters would put the name of a trustee that no one can find, right? I mean, if the trustee is going to be someone who is in the Bahamas, right. Or someone out of the country or someone who lives five states away, and his name is Bill Jones, how can someone suing, ever find that person? Right. You know, bill Jones, how many of those are in the country? So really you just have to think through this and the trustee, if the person suing, can’t find the trustee, they have, the next step is to go to court, get permission, to publish, notice in the newspaper. And you’ll never get that notice. You know, those things are published in two-point type at the end of the classifieds. You’re just never going to get that notice. In which case they go to court and say, the guy never showed up. He never answered the complaint. And the judge says, all right, well, you try it. You have a judgment against them
Who even reads the newspaper anymore. Right? Yeah. You asked my daughter, she’ll look at you like a deer in headlights. So we, what? But I, okay, so let’s just step back. I, when we’re talking about trust in the living trust, I mean, does it play into the whole asset protection strategy? I mean, is there a part in that whole strategy with using a trust?
Yeah. So we would have the title-holding LLCs, be set up in the state where the property’s located. We would have those title holding LLC is owned by one Wyoming. Okay. See right for the good asset protection on the outside attack. Then the question is who owns the Wyoming, LLC? I like having a living trust own that so that when mom and dad pass, we don’t have to go to court. We don’t have to go to probate where the attorneys get huge fees, right? The living trust says, we’ve decided we can do this on our own. And we’re going to transfer title without going to court to the kids. Now the living trust offers no asset protection, but it does offer probate avoidance, right? The LLC offers asset protection, but no probate avoidance. So the two work together, alright, the LLC offers the asset protection. It’s owned by the living trust that offers the probate avoidance. So they’re really working tandem. Now another trust that some people use Marco would be what’s called an irrevocable trust, which means someone can’t force their way through and get at the assets. It’s irrevocable. We have a trustee who is supposed to work for the beneficiary. The person who benefits from the trust and these new trusts are called asset protection trusts. So for example, the Nevada asset protection trust, once the assets are in there for two years, a later creditor can’t complain about it and they can’t get through the trust to get at any of the assets. The trustee by state law cannot distribute assets to a creditor. And so that’s another trust that people use. Now, I talked to people about these trusts. We don’t do them. I refer them to another attorney for them. But when you really get into it, I would say 90% of my clients don’t set these trusts up. They’re expensive. The trustee fees are expensive and it’s irrevocable. I mean, you really have a tough time changing it. So I think for most people you get the good asset protection with the LLC, right? You can avoid probate with the living trust. And that seems to be a good combination for a lot of people.
That’s a great answer. I like to visualize a living trust as an envelope that you wrap around your asset protection infrastructure. That’s just the way I envisioned that whole thing. I don’t know if that’s a good one.
Yeah. That’s a good way to describe it. And it’s revocable meaning you can change the terms. So if one kid goes to seed, I mean, you can say I’m going to change the terms of the trust. And so the beneficiaries are only going to be the two good kids, right? The black sheep is out of the wealth or out of the trust and you know, it’s pretty easy.
Yeah. And it’s a good thing to use for blackmail purposes if necessary.
That’s great. Yeah. Keep them in line with the use of [inaudible]
So, you know, we’re talking about all these pieces of an asset protection plan, and I know a lot of people start investing in real estate and they get to a point where they think, Oh, I’ve got this small portfolio and I really haven’t done much, if anything, at all, when it comes to asset protection, you know, is it ever too late to plan for asset protection or is it ever too late to start implementing asset protection? Maybe that’s kind of a silly question, but
No, it’s a really good question because there’s one time when it’s too late. Okay. All right. So people should set things up as they go set up the LLCs, you start buying the real estate. The one time it’s too late to set up the asset protection. And I’ve had this case happen is when you take title in your individual name and you say, Oh, I’ll, I’ll put it in LLC when I can afford it or whatever. And between the time you take title and before you put it in the LLC, you’ve been sued by a tenant it’s too late at that point to put it into an LLC. That at that point, that when you owned the title in your individual name, the tenant fell on the property, you are personally responsible for that claim. You can’t set up an LLC later, too.
Right. And you don’t want that to happen. However, unlikely it may be that you just don’t want that to ever happen. So it kind of that segues to another question. You got me thinking about this question. There’s two questions. Actually we get from our investor clients. Often one is how many properties or how much equity is the derivative of this question. Should I keep in one LLC? And then you’ve got these extremes. You’ve got some people who say one property, regardless of the price value or equity in per LLC. And then you’ve got another extreme if you will, attorneys that will argue that, well, you can have two, three or more in one LLC provided you meet X conditions, you know, minimal equity, whatever it may be. It seems like there’s no right or wrong answer to this. It’s just a matter of what your risk tolerance is and what the asset protection attorney is recommending as best practice.
Right? And there is no one right answer. I have clients who will put just one property per LLC. I have clients that will put, you know, four in one LLC. And my job is to explain the consequences of that. But it’s really a judgment call on the client’s part. It’s the client’s decision. Like you said, Marco, what is their risk tolerance? You know, what do they feel comfortable with? You know, California, it’s $800 per year per entity. I mean that, that’s a factor for people with properties in California. Now that said, I would recommend a client not put 10 properties in one LLC, because if a tenant sues on one property, they have a claim against the LLC. They can get the equity in all 10 properties. So that’s not really a good way to go, but if it’s three, maybe four and the client understands the risks, it’s their call.
So do you leave it to the client to make that decision? Or do you have like a guideline or a rule of thumb that you use as far as when you draw the line and say, okay, you have enough property in that, LLC?
No, I leave it up to the client, but here’s the other thing I tell the client, Marco is, you know, you get, you put three properties in one LLC, right? And you start paying them off and they start appreciating, right? So instead of having equity of a hundred thousand in all three properties now within this LLC, we have equity of 800,000, right? You always have the ability to move one or two properties out to another LLC. So we have the flexibility. If you start out with three in one LLC, and they go way up in value, we can, we have the flexibility to set up two more LLCs for the two other properties. So, you know, it’s, it’s really up to the client.
Well, you may not say that in this recording, but I will say it on your behalf. That that process is very simple. And doesn’t take very long. You can set up an LLC in a day and you can create a quick claim deed or a warranty deed or whatever it may be and transfer the title in a very short period of time. And it’s almost seamless. So you can have an attorney do it for you very quickly. It’s not a big deal. So not a big deal. It really isn’t, it’s just paperwork. Right. So, right. So stepping back and just kind of looking at this whole thing. If someone asked you, is there an ideal asset protection plan? How would you answer that question?
Well, you know, we have to look at everybody’s situation and see what’s best for them. Okay. But you know, our ideal plan is, as I mentioned to have the title holding LLCs in the state where the property’s located and then to have those title, holding LLCs, be owned by one, perhaps two, if you have a lot of properties, a Wyoming or Nevada LLCs, and that comes into play when you get in the car wreck, right. It has nothing to do with the real estate, but they would like to get at all your real estate properties, they have to fight through the Wyoming LLC, which there, all they get is a lien on distributions. Right? All they get is the charging order, right? And so that is a, that’s an impediment to attorneys run a contingency fee. They don’t want to wait around. And in some cases go to Wyoming or hire a Wyoming attorney to pursue this. So I, our pattern, I guess, would be title holding LLC, and the state where they’re located Wyoming and Nevada LLCs to be holding LLCs. And then I always recommend that people have a policy of umbrella insurance, right. You know, for personal and auto, because if you get in that horrific car wreck, there’s an extra layer of insurance that the attorneys can get at. They know how to get insurance money and they’ll leave you alone on the LLC.
That’s an extra layer of insurance. In addition to the home policy that the auto policy, the policies on the properties, the umbrella insurance is really just another layer of backstop to all of those. So when those run out, it’s kind of like bridge financing or gap financing, it just fills in the gap.
Yeah. And then, you know, in most states you can get an extra million dollars of umbrella coverage.
Yeah. It’s super cheap. It’s crazy. Not to even have it. There’s no argument for not having it. So, you know what I mean? Really. So you made me think of something when you talked about the holding company and this is where I’m just going to leave the whole topic of asset protection alone here. You know, I have a Wyoming LLC as a holding company that owns these individual LLCs in different States. Is there any benefit to having, you mentioned this actually multiple holding companies, are those in parallel to each other or are they stacked over each other where one holding LLC or holding companies owned by another holding company and so on and so on. I mean, you can get this really ridiculous.
No, I, I’m not a big believer in the stacking. I think you, you know, you have a Wyoming LLC, right? They’re going to have trouble getting through that. So, you know, to have three more layers above it, I just don’t see.
So there’s no value in that. You can go wide, but yeah, you can go wide, but it doesn’t make sense to go deep.
Right? So you have five or six properties held by one Wyoming, LLC. Right. I would have the next five or six properties held by a Nevada LLC. Right? So the attorney has to go to two States to try and get through these asset protected LLC, Nevada and Wyoming are two great States, right. For asset protection.
And just to clarify for the people listening and watching this, when you say that Wyoming LLC is holding those properties, they’re not actually holding the properties and correct me if I’m wrong here, the properties are held in title holding LLCs. And those LLCs are actually holding, held by the holding company. So there’s that extra layer.
And there’s, that’s a very good point to add on Marco is the Wyoming LLC will not hold title to any correct. Right. Because it could get sued on that property. In which case they could reach all the title holding LLC. The Wyoming LLC is the holding company is passive. It doesn’t do business with anyone. We don’t ever want it to be sued. So let’s just keep that Wyoming LLC, as passive, all it does is hold the membership interests in the title, holding LLC. It’s not entitled to any property.
Exactly. And if I may take that one step further for the listeners and you can comment as you see fit here, that holding company, that holding LLC, regardless of whether you have one or more, they’re not operating businesses, there’s no transactional business in there. They’re just simply there to hold membership interest in other LLCs. You’re not actually running your Amazon business in there or whatever it may be. That’s a separate entity altogether. And you know, Garrett can obviously help you with that and set that up for you.
That’s a good point. Yes. And that Wyoming, LLC, the holding company will have a bank account because we need to transfer the money from the title, holding LLCs to the Wyoming, LLC, and then to you. But that’s all it really has his name.
So that’s a good segue to my last question, really. And that is what are the biggest mistakes or mistake that investors make even business owners for that matter when it comes to asset protection, I’m sure there’s a laundry list of mistakes that people make. But what would you say are one or two of the biggest ones?
Well, certainly one of the biggest ones Marco is when they set up the LLC, they think they’re done and you have to actually do a deed. I like using a grant deed or a warranty deed from your name. If the property is held in your individual name into the LLC, people often forget to take that important step. Another thing people don’t do is, you know,, they don’t pay the annual fees to the state. And if you do that, you’re going to lose your protection. You paid money to set up this charter that gives you limited liability. If you don’t pay the state and certainly gonna understand stand the state’s motivation. If you don’t pay the state, they’re gonna revoke your charter and you think you’re protected, but you get called into court. The charter has been revoked, right? You have no protection, essentially that title is back in your individual name. So that’s a problem too, that we see.
So why do people make that mistake. Is it because they are putting it upon themselves to try to remember to pay it? Or, I mean, I can’t imagine.
I think I can’t imagine it either, but it happens. And so, you know, people will throw stuff into a shoebox. They’ll get a notice from the state and ignore it. They’re too busy. They don’t want to deal with it. But that is one of the most important invoices you’ll ever get is you want to pay that every year to maintain your protection.
Or you can hire an attorney that just automatically,
Yeah, we do it. We have a maintenance service. We do that for him. Well, we’ll be on your case. I mean, we’ll be sending you emails. Like, you know, you’re going to be revoked if you don’t pay this invoice in another 30 days,
The way I look at it is it’s just like having a Netflix membership. You know, if you’re going to pay a monthly or annual fee to keep renewing your gym membership, your Netflix membership and every other membership that you have nowadays, you know, this is just another one of those subscriptions that automatically renews something that is critically important. Not just, not just watching movies.
That’s a good point, but it’s also like not paying an insurance bill. Well, that’s true. Right? I mean, these are insurance. So ignoring that invoice is like ignoring your car insurance.
Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. That’s a big one. And I think if nothing else put it in your calendar as a reoccurring appointment every year, so you remember, or just have your attorney to do it. Right. So, all right. That sounds great. Anything else you want to add to that? Cause I’m gonna probably wrap it up here.
Well, no, I think that was great. Marco.
So you told me before we started recording that you have a new book coming out, which I had no idea about. So why don’t you tell us about that and what it is and when it’s coming out, please,
I got to folk hold up the current bestselling book. I have Loopholes of Real Estate, which is tax and legal strategies. This is in the rich dad series, but Marco, this is the new one called Scam Proof Your Assets: Guarding Against Widespread Deception. And you know, we’re inundated with email scams and internet scams and phone scams. And you know, people are innocently caught up in these things. And so you have to know what to look out for, what the patterns are, what defensive steps you can take. And then I also argue at the end of the book that, you know, we need to have cyber bounty hunters, right? We need to have people that actually go after these bad guys because you know, they’re gaining skills someday. They’re going to be able to take down power systems, hospital systems you know, we really need to start going after these people. And another problem we have is the government when you get hacked, right? And people take sensitive information, not from you, but any business, you know, they take sensitive information. The government’s position is that you who did not intend to be hacked are at fault and the criminal goes scot-free, they don’t ever make an effort to go after the criminals that are doing all this hacking. It’s really a, a weird situation. So we need to kind of stand up and start arguing to the government. This is a nonpolitical issue that we have to go after all these people. Because as you know, Marco people are losing billions of dollars every year, right? People suffer from depression. There are numerous cases of suicide as a result of these scams and it’s time to put a stop to this. So that’s what the book is about.
Yeah. That’s interesting. Cause it really kind of ties into what you already do. I look at my personal information, my credit score, my social security number, my home address all as personal assets, you know, they may not generate cashflow, but they certainly contribute to your financial wellbeing. And so you got to protect them and look at them as if they were assets. So it’s kind of like asset protection for your personal wellbeing.
Well, and these gangsters are after your assets. All right. So I mean, we want to protect our assets however we can. But one of the big ways with the onslaught of all this deception is you’ve got to take steps to protect your personal assets. You’ve got to know the signs of what is a scam and also people need to start reporting. If you get scanned, you need to go to IC3 and report that to the federal government.
Hmm. Interesting. Okay. So the book comes out when?
October 27th.
Okay. So less than two months away. Right? Right. Well, I’ll make sure that we update the post and the transcription to include the link to the book when it comes out. But in the meantime, we’ll just have everything else out there. Garrett tell our listeners and viewers how they can find you and learn more about what you do.
Great. So our main website is corporatedirect.com. And we also offer a free 15-minute consultation with one of the incorporating specialists. You know, if you want to see what we do and what we offer and if there’s a fit, so you can call 800-600 -1760 to set up a free 15-minute consult. So 800-600-1760.
And I will add Garrett that we’ve had a number of clients this year, actually give us some feedback on you and your staff and your services. And everybody’s been very highly complimentary. So I guess that’s the best, you know, the best thing you can hear right. Is just other people’s. I appreciate that, even though it’s great. So I appreciate you. So hang in there, Garrett. I appreciate you taking the time today. So thank you for coming back on the show and for everybody else, listening here today. Thanks for listening. You know, download our free report, the ultimate guide to passive real estate investing. I know it’s been downloaded probably close to 20,000 times. It is a great primer for real estate and that complemented with asset protection materials that Garrett has on his website would make a very powerful mix for you. Remember, we offer a free strategy session with our investment counselors. If you have a question about real estate investing, send it to Ask Marco.com and that’s it for today.
Thank you for listening. We will see you all on our next episode.
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