Family Office Center

The Gaon Law Firm’s Family Office Center provides its clients with comprehensive and reliable solutions for all aspects of asset management including bequests, gift transfers, guardianship, trusts and corporate successions. The Family Office Center comprises experts in trust, tax and gift and estate law to provide comprehensive solutions. In addition to helping to resolve disputes caused by transfers of asset , we provide solutions to pre-emptively avoid possible issues that might arise when dealing with wealth and asset management. Especially in an era of massive demographic changes caused by fluctuations in birth rate, an increasing ageing population, the diversification of families, and more. We also advise on all matters related to corporate succession planning so that family-owned businesses may be efficiently transferred from generation to generation.

Gifts and Bequests

We develop customized strategies that take into account the particular wishes and needs of the donor/testator and address all aspects of wealth transfer to the next generation, from structuring the most legally appropriate and tax-efficient gift and/or estate planning to the seamless execution and implementation of those plans. We also can assist in the resolution of family and inheritance disputes related to wealth transfers.

Key Services
· Requesting inheritance restoration
· Requesting a trial on the division of inheritance properties
· Legal Portion Claim
· Litigation which confirms the invalidity of a will or bestowal
· International inheritances and gifts
· Writing trust contracts for wills
· Applying for a renunciation of inheritance
· Family business successions
· Inheritance/gift planning (estate planning)
· Gift tax return and the claiming of reassessments
· Responding to tax audits relating to inheritances and gifts
· Appeals of inheritance or gifts tax assessments (requesting an adjudication, administrative litigation, etc.)

Trusts

With the complete revision of the 2011 Trust Act, trusts are now being used for numerous matters such as construction, real estate, asset management, and property succession. GAON’s Family Office Centre is the first in the financial sector to launch an asset succession strategy programme which can offer the optimal trust and estate planning that reflects the grantor’s wishes. We offer services covering a wide spectrum of issues, including continuous asset management, estate planning for transferring assets to spouses and children, and property protection and management for disabled and elderly individuals. We also help with corporate succession planning; the trust and tax teams work to collaborate with one another in order to present the most ideal plan for the client’s every asset. We also operate the tax advisory and litigation work that may surface during the processes of starting, operating and closing an inheritance trust.

Key Services
· Inheritance trusts (asset successions/beneficiary nature trusts)
· Guardianship trusts (aged property management trusts/disabled person trusts)
· Stock trusts/designing the structure and operations of family asset successions
· Real estate trusts
· Trust-related tax advice, and litigation services

100-year Corporation Succession Advice

Corporate succession begins to occur more frequently as the ageing population increases. Gaon’s Family Office Centre proposes the best trust solutions that enables companies of clients to be passed down for many generations to come. We design a master plan for corporate succession and design an additional trust structure for asset management. We study cases from overseas that have maintained a company for over 100 years through the separation of corporate voting rights and dividends which helps us tailor succession solutions to specific circumstances faced by our clients. We provide succession planning assistance for the future and growth of companies through organic collaboration between the Gaon tax and corporate advisory team.

Key Services
· Forming stock trusts
· Forming trust-based succession master plans
· Forming inheritance master plans for family-owned businesses
· Tax advisory and litigation advice

Domestic Litigation

Domestic litigation is not a simple matter of legal and/or property issues but can be emotionally demanding and draining. The GAON Law Group’s Family Office Centre not only plays the role of a facilitator who supplies clients with structured resolutions for marital and family disputes, but also actively supports clients in achieving the best possible outcome.

Key Services
· Divorce, requests for an alimony and property division
· Annulments and void marriages
· Child support/support claim
· Paternity suits
· International domestic affairs
· Division of inheritences
· Guardianship structures: for adults, for a limited time, voluntarily and guardianship contract preparation
· Action demanding affiliation of child / paternity
· Adoption and dissolution of adoption