White Plains Divorce Law Blog

Prenuptial agreements have had a bad reputation for a long time, but in recent years, more and more spouses are seeing the wisdom of these agreements. Essentially, a prenup recognizes that humans aren't perfect, and sometimes we make mistakes when we select the person who we think we want to spend the rest of our lives with. It represents a sound and respectful plan for the possibility of divorce, which hopefully will never occur.

Here are some of the benefits of signing a prenuptial agreement before your marriage:

• If you have children from a prior marriage, your prenuptial agreement can protect their inheritance rights.
• A premarital agreement will protect your ownership rights of a professional practice or business.
• A premarital agreement will protect your future spouse from the debts you currently hold.
• Premarital agreements protect spouses who give up their lucrative careers to enter into a marriage.
• Spouses can detail in their prenups how they plan to share responsibilities during marriage.
• Spouses can use premarital agreements to limit their liability in terms of spousal support.
• Premarital agreements can protect the financial interests of individuals who have substantial wealth and plan to get married.
• Premarital agreements create an action plan for divorce, allowing divorces to happen more swiftly and cost-effectively.

When it comes to international travel, parents need to establish some guidelines about the procedures that must be followed when one of the parents wants to take the child outside of the United States.

While it can be an enriching experience for your child to travel overseas with you or the other parent, it can also be dangerous, so it's important that you establish some simple rules. Parents can codify these rules within their parenting plan in the form of parenting provisions that might look something like this:

• Both parents can travel out of the United States with the child if they provide at a minimum 14 days of notice to the other parent. This notice will include a detailed itinerary showing where the child will be and when, along with phone numbers so the other parent can be in touch if needed.
• The parents agree to share legal documents, such as birth certificates and passports, with one another if they are required for the child to travel out of the country with the parent.
• The parents will not apply for passports for the child without first obtaining the permission of the other parent or a family law court.
• The parents will keep the child's passport in a safe deposit box guarded under court seal.