Attorney
Can a trust shield my assets from creditors?
Estate planning includes deciding how to manage property, provide for loved ones and address foreseeable risks. Asset-protection planning considers lawful exemptions, ownership arrangements, insurance and appropriate trust or entity structures. It requires attention to existing obligations; moving property does not erase a creditor’s rights.
Spendthrift Trusts
Often, a main concern of parents in passing down their hard earned assets to the next generation is that their assets could be seized by creditors of their children. A continuing trust can support an adult child while addressing the creditor risks and management needs relevant to that beneficiary. To shield your assets from creditors, you may wish to consider placing assets within a trust that contains a spendthrift provision.
A trust’s distribution terms can provide regular payments or allow a trustee to respond to a beneficiary’s needs. A valid spendthrift provision generally restricts assignment of the beneficiary’s interest and access by most creditors before distribution. There are statutory exceptions, and overdue mandatory distributions may be reachable. A trust created for your own benefit raises different rules: a revocable trust generally does not shield your property from your creditors, and creditors may generally reach amounts an irrevocable trust can distribute for your benefit.
Family Limited Partnerships
A family limited partnership can organize management and transfer of family investments or a business. General partners ordinarily manage the partnership; rights and responsibilities depend on the partnership agreement and governing law. Florida does not make a limited partner personally liable solely because that person participates in management. Liability for the partnership’s obligations and creditor remedies against an owner’s interest are separate questions.
An entity is not a universal creditor shield. Florida’s charging-order rules and the nature of the claim matter, and an entity’s own creditors may reach its property. Transfers made to hinder, delay or defraud creditors, or transfers meeting other statutory tests, can be challenged even before a lawsuit is filed. Early planning is useful, but timing alone does not make a transfer protected.
Contact an estate planning attorney to discuss the various estate planning methods that may lawfully protect your assets from creditors.
Sources: Florida Statutes § 736.0505; Florida Statutes § 620.1303; Florida Statutes § 726.105.
Updated October 26, 2026.