How to protect your assets

As a real estate owner, you’ve built up a great property portfolio and some valuable assets. But are they adequately optimised and protected? Even if you’re the most careful business owner, something could happen that’s out of your control and puts your investments at risk.

Here are some top tips to help protect your assets, whether you’re just starting out or you’ve got years of professional experience under your belt.

Get insured

There are many challenges and risks facing business owners, from rising costs to natural disasters. It’s vital to have the correct real estate insurance to cover all eventualities, such as loss of rent, property damage and rehousing costs across your entire portfolio. Choose a suitable policy that has portfolio and asset protection built in to safeguard all your investments.   

Consider a limited company

An SPV (or Special Purpose Vehicle) is often created within real estate to hold a property portfolio. There are many benefits of setting up a separate SPV company, including holding several properties in one portfolio, a business account for outgoings unrelated to personal spending and tax savings outside of your personal tax allowance.

With SPVs, your property assets are separated from other investments, offering greater protection should you have to deal with a liability claim elsewhere.

Avoiding risks

This is perhaps the most obvious way to protect your assets and can save you thousands in the long term. However, there’s usually some level of risk involved if you want to increase your investments. A sensible strategy is weighing up the cost-benefit scenario and deciding on an amount you’re willing to risk.

There are many risk management solutions and it’s always worth taking into consideration the current market trends, interest rates, inflation and any other likely influences before committing. Buying below current market value or purchasing properties in need of renovation will help to mitigate the risks involved.

Register your properties with the Land Registry

To prevent fraud, it’s a good idea to register all your properties with the Land Registry. You can also set up an alert, so you’ll know if someone tries to use your property to commit land fraud. The more properties you have, the bigger the risk, so protecting against this aspect of fraud could potentially save you thousands.

The fee you’ll need to pay to register your portfolio of properties depends on the value and the number of properties being registered.

Whilst you can’t always prevent every risk or eventuality, following these tips will offer a good level of protection, giving you peace of mind that if something does occur, you’ll be properly covered.

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