At our Law Firm, we aim to help our clients make the most of their assets. We begin with an in-depth discussion so that we can understand each client's needs and goals. Then our highly skilled estate planning attorneys create an action plan that will fulfil the clients’ wishes regarding how they want their wealth distributed or protected. You will determine whom, how, and when and we will orchestrate the entire process, including coordinating the experts and wealth management products required to execute the clients’ wishes.
Our range of services to private clients include:
- Trust & Asset protection
- Tax planning
- Estate planning
- Creating and advising family offices
- Investment structures
- Property planning
- Residential and agricultural property sale and purchase
- Services to non-domiciliaries
- Wills and probate
- Yacht ownership, management, purchase, and sale
Trusts
Create a trust for asset protection to help secure your family’s future by helping to manage your assets, protect them from creditors, and maintain their value after taxes are applied.
What is a Trust?
Within the legal world a trust, is the formal transfer of assets (it might be property, shares or just cash) through a Trust Deed, to a trust specialist (Trustee) with instructions that they hold assets for the benefit of others (Beneficiaries).
Why make a trust?
- Throughout their history, trusts have provided people with a means of protecting their assets and controlling their use after they were given away. For almost 1,000 years, families have used trusts to preserve and manage their wealth for the benefit of their heirs.
- Cyprus trust law is modeled after the English system. Trusts are mainly regulated by the Trustee Law, Chapter 193, enacted in 1955 and based on the English 1925 Trustees Act. Asset protection law is supplemented by the English doctrine of equity and English case law prior to 1960.
- In 1992, Cyprus enacted the International Trusts Law. On 23 March 2012, the International Trust (Amending) Law of 2012 came into effect reforming the International Trusts Law of 1992.
- The new Law builds on the existing alluring Cyprus International Trusts Law and has introduced many new competitive features. The new amendments have modernized and updated Trust Law, establishing Cyprus as an offshore and financial center as well as a serious contender within trusts jurisdictions.
Asset Protection
Trusts can also protect trust assets from potential creditors of the beneficiaries of the trust. The extent to which a beneficiary's creditors can reach trust property depends on how much access the beneficiary has to the trust property.
The CIT may be used to protect assets from risks arising in tort, contract or with transactions entered into by the settlor. Types of claims may include Negligence, Breach of contract, Declarations of spouses or former spouses, Expropriation, Breach of statutory duty among many others.
A CIT or a transfer of trust assets may only be set aside by the settlor’s creditors to the extent that it is proven to the satisfaction of the court, that it (the CIT) was made with the intent to defraud creditors. The burden of proof is on the creditors who must prove that the CIT was created with the intent to deceive them and that they were creditors at the time of the making of the CIT. A settlor has only two years from the asset transfer/disposal date to dispute the transfer of assets. And they can only challenge.
Managing family wealth & estate planning
A Trust is ideal for high net-worth individuals with complicated family structures, like for instance, divorced spouses and children from different weddings.
The Cyprus law is the proper law of the CIT.
If the chosen law of the CIT is the law of Cyprus, then Cyprus is under an obligation to protect that trust. No other country other than Cyprus has jurisdiction over how to apply and implement the CIT. This protects against the application of foreign laws such as forced heirship, and it provides greater control and protection of the CIT.
In the busy world we live in, it is easy to overlook the arrangement of our personal affairs. At Mylonas Law our aim is to help our clients make the most of their assets. Our approach to our clients' affairs is to establish a base for opportunity, whilst ensuring that future security is not in any way jeopardized.
Some recent work in the area handled by the firm includes:
- We are acting as Legal Advisors of a private family office.
- Mylonas Law engaged as the Legal advisor providing Legal and tax law advise regarding the international tax matters of a HNWI and Estate & Asset Protection planning.
- Mylonas Law engaged as the Legal Advisor of UK Trusts redomiciled in Cyprus under the Cyprus International Trust law.