Dear Clients and friends,
You may have heard about “gray divorces” in recent years, referring to when couples over 50 get divorced, often after decades of marriage. Along with gray divorce comes “gray marriages” when older people get married in their 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond.
In many instances, both spouses come into these marriages retired, with financial security, good pensions, grown children on their own and a free and clear family residence
The assumption may be that if the marriage breaks up, they’re each no worse for the wear and will leave the marriage with what they brought into it. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t still consider a prenuptial agreement for these late-in-life marriages.
For one thing, a pre-nup may be a way of balancing your loyalty to your children from a previous marriage with concerns about ensuring your new spouse is taken care of should anything happen to you.
Without a pre-nup, an estate plan can be changed at any time for any reason, giving both of your kids and your new spouse a level of insecurity. With a pre-nup, however, you can split up your estate between your new spouse and your kids in the most appropriate way possible.
A pre-nup also is a useful way to deal with retirement assets. This is especially relevant because later in life, you’re more likely to be using these assets. You can decide in a prenuptial agreement which assets you’ll use as a couple to support yourself and work out how to divide up retirement accounts between a surviving spouse and a deceased spouse’s children from a prior marriage.
There are other benefits to be considered in a gray marriage pre-nup and we invite each of you to call us for a free phone evaluation on your questions in this pre-nup area of law or as to any other family law.
Best,
Ron
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