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CNN
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Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez may or may not have chosen to sign a prenuptial agreement before getting married.
Such agreements normally detail what each person will take away in terms of assets, debts and spousal support should the marriage end in divorce or death.
Bezos — the founder of Amazon whose net worth Forbes estimates to be north of $200 billion — has a lot of wealth to protect, should his second marriage go south. But chances are his assets and estate are already structured and professionally managed in a way that they would never become marital assets, two attorneys who specialize in prenups told CNN. So the biggest question if he and Sanchez did opt for a prenup is what payout she would get if they divorced or he predeceases her.
But for everyone else wondering if they should get a prenup before saying “I do,” there are many factors to consider for both partners.
Prenups used to be stigmatized as unromantic and a sign that at least one partner (or the partner’s family) didn’t trust the incoming spouse or worried the marriage wouldn’t last.
But, in recent years, Illinois-based divorce and marital attorney Gail O’Connor, founder of O’Connor Family Law, said she has seen a huge jump in couples seeking them out. It might be a generational thing, she suggested.
“Millennials want to be very financially independent. So there is this idea of people getting married later and thinking, ‘I’ve worked hard for this and want to protect it,’” O’Connor said.
But the “it” doesn’t have to mean billions or even millions. It could just mean you’ve worked for a decade and built up savings, investments and stock options.
Or, conversely, she said she has seen a lot of couples where one person has a large debt load — for example, $100,000 or more in education loans. “And their partner wants to be protected from that,” O’Connor said.
Prenups may make sense for couples who are on their second marriage or just marrying much later in life after accumulating assets and having children whose interests they want to protect.
Or for any couple where one partner stands to inherit money or who simply has a much higher net worth going into the marriage.
But the couples for whom prenups are arguably most critical are those in which one partner owns a business. “It’s not about the actual level of wealth but what the assets are (when a couple marries),” said Jacqueline Newman, managing partner of Berkman Bottger Newman & Schein in New York.
While a business may not be worth much when a couple weds, it might grow greatly during the marriage — that is, of course, what happened for Bezos during his first marriage, to MacKenzie Scott. Business-owning spouses will want to protect the value of what they built, but non-owning spouses also will want to protect their financial well-being, especially if they make considerably less in their own job or are a stay-at-home parent. Especially since business-owning spouses may have a lot of control over what their actual income is during the marriage (which is likely to be considered in assessing joint marital assets and spousal support) versus what gets reinvested into their business, Newman noted.
The contract can be drawn as narrowly or as broadly as a couple wants.
For instance, Newman noted, a couple may opt for a prenup that basically asserts that any assets or debt in one person’s name goes with that person at the end of the marriage. And any assets or debts in both partners’ names are split.
A very simple prenup might also just focus on a single asset and how it will be treated if the marriage dissolves.
Or, O’Connor said, it could address the issue of how one partner’s debt is paid off during the marriage. For instance, if any jointly held marital assets are used to make one partner’s debt payments, that partner may need to reimburse the joint account.
Financial disclosure by each partner is required by law.
While verification of what you disclose is not necessarily legally required, O’Connor asks her clients to give her proof of their assertions by way of their most recent tax returns, W2s, stock option grants, business valuations, and bank and brokerage statements.
Whether you work with a marital law attorney or a trust and estate law attorney who specializes in prenups – or if you create a legally binding agreement through online entities like HelloPrenup.com – it is in each partner’s best interest to be transparent and honest about what they have, what they make and what they owe, O’Connor said.
If you’re not, should things end badly, that can be used against you if your spouse wants to challenge the validity of the prenup.
“You don’t want to build a contract subject to a successful attack. The more disclosure you have, the better,” she said.
A prenup is governed by the laws of the state in which it was drawn up, Newman said. So that’s something to consider if you end up living in a different state after marrying. She recommends taking your prenup to a marital or estate attorney in that new state to review your agreement to make sure it complies with that state’s laws.
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