Asset Protection - local, large company, or self created LLCs?

[James Ross]

Hello everyone!

I've been looking into asset protection for real estate and I was wondering what everyone prefers to use?  I've spoken with Royal Legal Solutions and similar nation wide companies specializing in real estate asset protection and they seem to provide a good service.  However, it is quite expensive in initial setup ($5-10K depending on what services you're looking for), plus an extra few hundred for each new property added.  Long term, this doesn't sound bad, but I'm just starting out and don't have oodles of cash.  On the other hand, I really really want to do asset protection correctly and have no legal experience myself.

Another option is to look into local asset protection attorneys and see what they offer.  I haven't done this yet but plan to.

And finally, I can set up a series LLC myself and hope I do it correctly, never piercing the corporate veil.

What do you all do, and what did you do when starting out?  I'm looking for recommendations as to whether I should start now with one of the big companies and account for the loan I would need to set up the legal protection in my next property, or if another approach will be better.  Right now I have just the one property, currently held in my name.

Any advice you can give would be appreciated!  I know that most of the people who respond are not attorneys, so the disclaimer "you should definitely talk to a lawyer to be sure of the law" is understood.