Prenuptial Agreements: 5 Reasons To Have One

For the many Oklahoma couples who divorce every year, the process can be simplified when there is a prenuptial agreement in place. Prenuptial agreements often get a bad rap but, in reality, family law attorneys find that couples who have a valid prenup in place divorce with less animosity than those who divorce and have no prenup in place.

A prenup is like an insurance policy. For example, you may have car insurance. You hope you never have to use it, but if you are in an accident, you are certainly glad you have the policy in place. The same is true of a prenuptial agreement. The hope is that you never have to use it, but if you do, you will be glad you have it.

5 REASONS WHY YOU MAY BENEFIT FROM A PRENUPTIAL AGREEMENT

There are quite a few reasons why you may benefit from a prenuptial agreement. Here are just 5 of them.

1. A prenup preserves ownership of separate property. At the time of the marriage, one or both of you may own property in your own name that you want to keep separate from jointly owned marital property. If this is clearly spelled out in a prenup, you can avoid the complicated and expensive process of tracing property ownership to prove it is separate property if you should happen to divorce.
2. It Preserves assets for children’s inheritance. When one or both of you have children from prior relationships, you may want to preserve your separately owned assets for your children’s inheritance.
3. You own a business at the time of the marriage. You may want to preserve the business asset as your own separate property so it does not become marital property.
4. One or both of you have substantial assets at the time of the marriage. You may want to share everything equitably from day one of your marriage. There are ways the prenup can be structured so that you maintain assets as separate property for infinity, or phase in joint ownership as the marriage endures.
5. One or both of you have substantial debt. You do not want your spouse to be responsible for the debt that you are bringing to the marriage. A good way to do this is to have a prenup that specifically articulates who the debt belongs to and that the other party is not responsible for it.

CONTACT BROWN & GOULD FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT PRENUPTIAL AGREEMENTS

Divorce is always a stressful time. Even when both parties agree divorce is in their best interest. Stress is reduced if a couple determines how assets should be distributed at a time when they feel lovingly toward each other should there be divorce down the road. For more information, consult with Brown & Gould. There are legal requirements you must meet for your prenup to be valid. Our Oklahoma City family law attorneys serve those in all of Oklahoma and are highly experienced in preparing valid prenups and in challenging the validity of a prenup when that is what their client needs.