The air is still heavy from another tax season. However, if you lift your ears to the gentle spring breezes, you may hear distant bells announcing this year’s wedding season. With many of these weddings will come financial complications that require attention, well before the vows are exchanged. Marriage is not just “tying the knot,” so to speak. No, marriage by its legal nature includes tying together all of your financial resources and interests. Unfortunately, these days marriage also has a dark side too: divorce. For those couples with important financial resources and interests in the marital mix, they may elect to use a prenuptial agreement as sort of an “insurance” policy in the event the marriage doesn’t work out as planned. Prenuptial agreements are nowhere as exotic as they are portrayed in the popular imagination. They can be, nevertheless, useful and important documents when produced through a spirit of full disclosure, careful deliberation, and independent legal representation. Otherwise, as pointed out in numerous articles these days, no prenuptial agreement is ironclad unless it is done correctly and, essentially, treated like the contractual understanding that it is. Recently, Forbes provides some guidance to evaluate the effectiveness of your prenuptial agreement in an article titled “Five Reasons Your Prenup Might Be Invalid.” In addition, The Wall Street Journal offers some specific guidance to get your prenuptial agreement ship-shape in an article titled “Shoring Up Your Prenup.” Used correctly, a prenuptial agreement, or even a post-nuptial agreement as the case may be, can help a couple frame their financial resources and interests in the context of their life together come what may. That can provide great peace of mind, especially when blending families and the children from those families.
Reference: Forbes (April 2, 2013) “Five Reasons Your Prenup Might Be Invalid”
The Wall Street Journal (March 29, 2013) “Shoring Up Your Prenup”
For more information, see www.jerryreiflawyer.com
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