Getting a divorce can be a traumatic experience, and because there are so many negative connotations surrounding divorce, prenuptial agreements get massive amounts of negative attention because people generally don’t like to spend time thinking about what they would do should something bad happen. It’s possible to plan for a future you hope doesn’t happen, just as we all do when we purchase accident insurance or fire insurance. Maybe people wouldn’t have such a negative opinion of prenuptial agreements if they viewed it as a form of insurance. If you viewed a prenuptial agreement as a form of divorce insurance, protecting your assets and hoping for the best possible outcome wouldn’t sound so unkind.
5 Tips for Creating Effective Prenuptial Agreements
Getting engaged is an exciting time, and the last you want to do is ruin it by thinking about what would happen if you decided to break up. If almost half of all marriages end in divorce, then a prenuptial agreement may be the most practical insurance you could buy to protect your assets. If half of all homes succumbed to fire or floods, insurance would be a “no-brainer” – everyone would have them. Couples are waiting longer and longer to tie the knot, and research shows that women wait almost ten years longer than they did 100 years ago. A decade is a long time to save, make investments, or even purchase your first home. People are coming to their marriages with more assets an
Here are five tips to help you start creating a prenuptial agreement to fit your situation.
- Honesty is the Best Policy: Don’t attempt to hide assets. It’s best to be honest about all your property and any valuations you’ve received about each asset’s market value.
- Be Fair and Reasonable: You are marrying someone because you care about them and hope to spend your lives together, so don’t start your marriage lying to them or trying to trick them into consenting to an unfair legal document. You will be better served by working with your fiancé to create something that serves both of your interests.
- Precision: It’s important to be precise and succinct when creating a prenuptial agreement. Don’t Thorough & Methodical execution: The keys to success when working on a prenuptial agreement come down to intentionality and thoroughness. You need to read and check the language to ensure you agree with how everything is written.
- Prepare for Negative Outcomes: It’s easy to prepare for a rosy future, but it’s harder to prepare for what we plan to do if we had to deal with only negative outcomes. A prenuptial agreement needs to be concerned with how we would respond to the bad things that could happen in our lives. Much in the same way we don’t like to think about death, no one likes to consider a negative scenario
Helping Our Clients Create Legal Documents
When people think about prenuptial agreements, they may feel the person with more resources is selfish or self-centered. It’s this perception that prevents people who need prenuptial agreements from getting one. A prenuptial agreement is at its most effective when it’s created by a legal professional.
Call us today at (916) 571-1550 to schedule a consultation, or you can use our online contact form to request more information.