Legal Question in Family Law in Maryland
Alternatives to prenup
I'm a frugal and private man who has never been married nor had children, and I own considerable financial assets which I can easily document. I'm engaged to a woman who I plan to marry sometime within the next two years who has far fewer assets and four children (two grown and two teenagers). A prenuptial agreement would, of course, require both of us to fully disclose our assets prior to the wedding. This is something I'd like to avoid if possible, because the revelation of my assets could result in pressure on me as to how my money should be spent, especially on her children, and friction on our marriage if I disagree. Her grown children have already asked me for loans, and I dread the thought of all the expanded requests I'd get if she fully knew my financial situation. If I have my assets well documented privately at the time of our wedding, is a prenup really necessary? Wouldn't this documentation be adequate to protect my current assets if our marriage is ever dissolved? Thanks for any advice you can provide.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Alternatives to prenup
Under MD law and the law of most non-community property states, any property you bring into a marriage remains nonmarital, not subject to distribution upon a divorce. So if you scrupulously avoid commingling your property with hers, you can protect this property in that event. However, if you die, your wife would be entitled to least 1/3 of your estate or more if you don't have a will. Given your family situation, this may be acceptable to you, but you certainly ought to make sure you have a valid will in place, especially if you are concerned about your fiancee's children acquiring your property.
The benefit of having a prenuptial agreement is if you want to limit your exposure to alimony in the event of a dissolution of the marriage. If you don't want to divulge the details of your assets, you might be able to put a valid agreement in place by simply stating the overall value of the assets, which she would acknowledge in the agreement and disavow any interest in. However, you should recognize that if you are involved in an alimony/divorce battle, she'll try to get access to your financial information as part of the court process.
If you would like to discuss this further, please contact me and I'll be happy to schedule an appointment.
Robert Sher
Re: Alternatives to prenup
You seem to already know a good deal about this area of the law. I commend you on having done some homework. Generally, a prenuptial agreement is a good idea if you have greater resources than your prospective spouse. It can protect you in many ways. Alimony is a separate issue than property. A prenup can deal with that too. Of course even with a prenup, you are not in the clear if, inter alia, a lot of time goes by, children are born or adopted, financial circumstances materially change, pre-marital property is co-mingled with marital property, if the prenup is not fair or reasonable, etc., etc. With or without a prenup, you need to keep your premarital property meticulously separate. Remember, you income during the marriage is marital property if you mix it with your premarital, or pay the expenses of your premarital property with your income, you just co-mingled and converted the entire property or account to potentially marital property. That still doesn�t necessarily mean your prospective spouse would get 50%, because we trace property to the original source and use a complicated formula to derive what's what. But co-mingled property becomes fully subject to equitable distribution and then your fait is in someone else�s control, not your own. Listen, if your spouse is having trouble keeping her children from hitting you up for money before you get married then you need to do your own soul searching and get pre-marital counseling to see where and what you may be headed for. This is not intended nor should be taken as legal advice or as a complete or authoritative recital of the law. Legal advice requires a detailed and person intake and review of your particulars. I bit you success and happiness.
-Cheers, A.P. Pishevar, Esq.
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