Written By: Brandy Miller | August 15, 2016 | No Comments
When celebrities and billionaires divorce, their prenuptial agreements and the terms of their alimony and child support orders are often news headlines. In many cases, the wealthy have prenuptial agreements, and their divorces are worth millions of dollars. If you never expect to see this amount of money in your life, do you still need a prenuptial agreement?
In most cases, the answer is yes.
For the wealthy, prenuptial agreements protect their sizable assets and ensure former partners are limited in how much wealth they can acquire during the process of the divorce. For those in the middle classes, however, prenuptial agreements can be just as important — if not more so.
Making Your Post-Divorce Life Affordable
Consider this: If you have billions of dollars, you may be able to afford losing tens of millions of dollars. However, if you are earning a middle class income, could you afford to lose half of your assets? If you have spent a lifetime building up your company or your wealth, losing half can impact your future and your ability to support yourself now and in retirement. A prenuptial agreement ensures you get to keep part of the assets you have worked so hard for.
In addition, a growing number of people are launching self-employment ventures, small businesses or other enterprises in addition to their careers. If you have a company, work as a self-employed person part of the time or have any sort of intellectual property — in the form of patents, trademarks, artistic works and so forth — you need to protect this work in the event of a divorce.
A prenuptial agreement ensures you won’t end up paying out of your profits or won’t end up having to close your company due to the dissolution of your marriage. In addition, if your business or your hobby suddenly takes off and you start making considerable amounts of money from your passion, you want to ensure the money you have worked so hard for is not taken away from you in a divorce.
Ensuring Fairness
If you and your spouse are in the middle class bracket, or even in blue-collar jobs, and one of you is earning more than the other, it is important to have a prenuptial agreement. In the event of the divorce, the person who has stayed behind to care for the family and who has contributed to the comfort of the breadwinner may be walking away with very little in a divorce — not enough to support themselves and to start over. With a prenuptial agreement, both parties can work out what each individual in a divorce will receive, ensuring everyone has a fair chance at a better life after the end of the relationship.
The reality is that many married couples can benefit from a prenuptial agreement. It can be a solid start for any marriage to discuss finances together. No one can predict what will happen, but planning ahead can ensure both parties enjoy peace of mind during their union.
If you’re considering getting married and would like advice about prenuptial agreements or you’re ready to sign an agreement, contact Miller Law Group. The attorneys at our Reading, Pennsylvania offices have more than four decades of combined experience, and we are known for offering caring and professional legal support and representation. We have worked with married couples in Berks County and surrounding areas. We’d be happy to sit down with you and your partner to discuss your future together.