A well-planned group structure can ring-fence your property, cash and IP from trading risk — but only if it's set up correctly and in good time. Let's talk through your situation.
Every business that trades carries risk. A supplier dispute, a professional negligence claim, a bad debt or a downturn can all put a company under financial pressure — and if that company also owns valuable assets, those assets are exposed too. Asset protection is about making sure that when something goes wrong in the trading side of the business, the things you have worked hard to build are not dragged down with it.
A group structure is one of the most effective, legitimate ways to do this, and it's one of the first things we look at when a client has built up a property, healthy cash reserves or valuable IP inside a trading company. By holding valuable assets in one company and trading from another, you create a barrier between risk and value. This guide explains how that barrier works, the classic PropCo/TradeCo split, how to move assets in safely, and — just as importantly — where asset protection stops. For the wider picture, start with our complete group structures guide.
The whole concept rests on one principle of UK company law: each limited company is a separate legal person. It can own assets, sign contracts, sue and be sued in its own name. Crucially, its debts are generally its own. If a company runs into trouble, its creditors can usually only pursue that company's assets — not the assets of a sister company or its parent.