Money Matters: Merging Lives, Merging Finances by Karas Veronica

Author:Karas, Veronica [Karas, Veronica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Foresight Book Publishing
Published: 2020-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

Prenuptial Agreements

I get that it is not the most romantic thing to be discussing as you plan your wedding, but you must consider when merging your finances, whether a prenuptial agreement is the best way forward. When you are tasting cake and practicing your first dance, do not lose sight of the fact that you are doing all of this to secure and put into action your joint future. Having said that, prenups exist for a reason, and you must discuss together whether it is the right thing to do in your circumstances.

Is a prenup a good idea? If possible, you should have a cool-headed discussion with your partner about why you might need one. A prenuptial agreement is a contract that couples draw up before they marry to direct how their assets will be divided in case of divorce or one of the spouse’s deaths. While you do not have to be a billionaire to consider a prenup, it is generally drawn up if one spouse has significant assets they accrued before the marriage, which need to be kept separate from joint finances if the marriage breaks down.

You should consider talking about a prenuptial agreement if:

• You are the owner or co-owner of a business,

• You already own a home,

• You have already accumulated significant assets before you marry. For example, if one partner has $500,000 in investments, and the other partner has $50,000 in debt. That creates a disparity of $550,000 in net worth that needs to be adequately addressed,

• You have children outside the marriage, and you would like to protect their inheritance rights,

• You have significant debts,

• You are the beneficiary of a trust that you do not want your partner to have access to.

If this is your first marriage, you are young, and you do not have significant assets accumulated, then you are less likely to need a prenup. Let us look at Jack and Jen again; they earn a similar enough salary and neither have any significant assets, so they are unlikely to consider a prenup. On the other hand, if Jen’s parents will be gifting them their home as a wedding present or if she had recently inherited a large sum of money from her grandparents, then that would be a reason to draw up a prenup. This would ensure that the assets she inherited remained hers in the event of a divorce, even if Jack used or benefitted from the assets during their marriage.

The process of getting a prenup is painless and straightforward, provided you have kept the channels of information open and had lots of honest conversations about why you want to go down this route. You should seek an attorney (preferably a divorce attorney) and have them draw up the prenuptial agreement. Your future spouse will hire their own attorney to review the document and make amendments that would be preferable to him or her. Likely, you will reach a middle ground of understanding that is fair for you both in the event things go sour.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.