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.
There’s no way to predict the future when getting married. We make our best estimate about the individuals we fall in love with, and then we take a leap of faith. One way to help provide a little insurance against a stressful or difficult divorce, however, is to plan ahead with a sound and respectful prenuptial agreement.
