Why You Should Consider A Prenuptial Agreement
A prenuptial agreement is a legal document that can help establish responsibilities and financial rights if a couple gets a divorce. While it can be a difficult matter to bring up as you approach your wedding day, it may be worth considering a prenuptial agreement for the following reasons.
Protecting Assets
One concern that couples have when entering a marriage is how they can preserve their individual assets if they were to get a divorce. This is common when someone owns a home prior to getting married, and then it becomes the family home shared by both people. A prenuptial agreement may be helpful to make it clear what property belongs to each person so there is not a dispute about how to divide it if a divorce happens.
Protecting individual assets can also extend to things such as pensions and retirement benefits, personal property, an inheritance, and things of that nature.
Clarifying Financial Responsibilities
A prenuptial agreement can also be used to clarify the financial responsibilities of each person. This extends to how joint savings accounts are divided if a divorce were to occur, especially if one person made significantly more money than the other.
Financial responsibilities can also include how debt is handled after a divorce. If your partner were to take on loans to go back to school, there may be an agreement in place that the student loan debt will not be divided if you were to get a divorce.
Protecting A Business
Owning a business can become a very complicated matter if a divorce were to occur, and safeguards need to be put in place to protect the business and the employees. It is common to use a prenuptial agreement to determine how a business will be divided during a divorce so that the company does not suffer as a result. This can include predetermined terms for a buyout of the other partner's half of the company.
Specifying Spousal Support
It is common for spousal support to be awarded after a divorce, especially when one person makes more money than the other. When there is a big difference in how much a couple makes, a prenuptial agreement can be used to set reasonable expectations for what spousal support would be. This also prevents the need to go through mediation or litigation to determine the proper amount of spousal support, because it has already been decided.
For more info, contact a local family law attorney.
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