Prenups: Good or Bad?
April 8, 2015
While I’ve posted about prenups before, a recent article by my friend, Linda Ravdin is an excellent primer on the subject.
Of course, the “standard” view is that everyone should have a prenup. Where either party has minor children (or even adult children), they definitely should have a prenup to protect the children, especially in a Community Property state where certain rights accrue at the time of the marriage.
OTOH, my view is that if the parties need a prenup to protect themselves in the event of a potential divorce, maybe they should not be getting married at all (call me a romantic). Part of this is due to the frequency I’ve seen of clients regretting that they ever signed the (damn) thing. While I’m sure their lawyer adequately explained it to them, since divorce was the last thing they were expecting, I found parties sign prenups simply because it is the price of getting married.
There is a myth that prenups can make a divorce less expensive. While that is true in certain cases, in others, it can make the settlement more expensive – and sometimes by far more than the attorney fees which would have been paid by not having a prenup.
So, for anyone considering getting married – or remarried – read Linda’s article and make your decision.
