asset protection for personal residence

[Arn S.]

My wife and I are looking for a way to preemptively protect our personal home from outside personal creditors (we have no creditors or obligations now) . GA has a weak homestead exemption and we have a lot of equity in home, no mortgage ie: no due on sale clause. I am aware of the tax disadvantages, irs 121 capital gains exclusion when selling. I am not interested in a family trust as we have no children. And don't want to put in irrevocable trust as we may want to sell in the future.....The only other option I have found is to put house in partnership (wife and I) LLC's name on the basis of this is our "office" and tool/equipment storage for other rentals in a separate LLC (weak if it ever goes to court?) or rent house back from LLC reporting rent as income and depreciating property. Any thoughts or ideas on this or other suggestions? Also, if we sell in the future, could we just quit claim the house to our names , live in for two years and then sell to meet irs 121 capital gains exclusion? Thanks

[Omar Khan]

@Arn S. With your personal residence, you have minimal, if any, advantage through asset protection. You will lose the capital gains exemption. Furthermore, it is very easy to "pierce the corporate veil" because, presumably, you will be living in the house i.e. you are getting direct benefit from the asset (and the asset protection is in name only). 

As @Addam Driver has pointed out, your best bet is to get a nice umbrella insurance. Plus, unless a really unfortunate series of events happens, most regular folk do not have their personal residence taken (not saying this is the case 100% of the time). 

Focus on building your wealth by re-fi your equity and investing in other areas (as recommended by @Costin I.).