By Alex Weiss CFP® | President & Wealth Manager
We work with a lot of really capable people—business owners, executives, private equity partners. These are people who know how to build, lead, and make decisions. They also tend to know when it makes sense to bring in help.
One of the areas we work on every week with clients is something that often gets overlooked: how their biggest assets are titled.
- Real estate
- Business interests
- Life insurance policies
- Investment accounts
- Private investments
- Etc
This is one of those things that feels administrative until it is not. We see it all the time: a new client comes in with a solid balance sheet and a strong plan, but a property is titled in a personal name, or a business still sits outside the trust it was meant to move into years ago.
Recent Example: Joint Real Estate Ownership
While interviewing attorney Marc Cusano of Borchers Trust Law, he recounted an example. He met recently with a couple—smart, organized, very intentional. Their primary residence was titled only in the wife’s name. Her plan was to add their son to the deed so they could avoid probate if something happened to her.
On paper, it made sense, but it also created a few new issues:
- Creditor Exposure: If your child faces a lawsuit, divorce, or debt issue, that property is now exposed. Their problems become your risk.
- Tax Consequences: You may lose step-up in basic benefits upon death. That means your heirs could face higher capital gains taxes unnecessarily.
- Control and Intentions: Co-ownership limits flexibility. Decisions about selling, refinancing, or transferring the asset become more complex.
These are the kinds of details that do not feel urgent—until they are. The good news is, they’re fixable.
The Better Way: Intentional, Aligned Titling
Our team walks through these things in real time. We review the full balance sheet together. Then we get to work:
- We help identify which assets need to be retitled—whether that means moving real estate, updating account ownership, or revisiting business interests.
- We directly coordinate with your attorneys.
- We help complete beneficiary paperwork and prep what you need for your bank or custodian.
- We follow through on every item—because unfinished planning does not help anyone.
This is the kind of service we mean when we talk about Fully Integrated Financial Planning. It means ownership on the part of your financial advisor to coordinate your entire team.
Why It Matters
Proper titling is not just about “getting organized.” It determines:
- Who controls your assets if something happens to you.
- Whether your estate plan actually works.
- How exposed your wealth is to outside risks.
- How much your heirs owe in taxes.
Families with complexity just have higher stakes when it comes to these details.
Getting Started
If you have not looked at your asset titling recently, now is the time. This is not the most exciting part of wealth management, but it might be one of the most important. If no one has ever walked through your balance sheet and asked, “Is this titled correctly—and intentionally?” we would be happy to start there.
