How A Prenup Can Help You During Your Divorce

Posted on: 6 April 2018

A prenuptial agreement not only helps you during your marriage, but it can also help you during your divorce. Here are some of the ways a prenup can come in handy if you are divorcing.

The Prenup Reduces the Negotiation Issues

A typical prenup handles most of the issues that are usually handled during a divorce. This includes things like debt management, separation of marital and separate assets, and property division (not in all states). This means that you won't have as many things to negotiate as other couples without prenups.

The Prenup Reduces Tension Between You

One of the reasons many couples fight each other during divorce is because everyone is looking to outdo the other in the divorce settlement. You want to get the biggest share of the marital property, get your way with the child custody arrangement, and minimize your share of the marital debts.

However, a prenup can reduce the level of tension between you because it has already handled some of these issues. For example, you don't have to worry about your partner hiding assets or using underhand tactics to get a bigger share of the marital assets because the issues have been dealt with in the prenup.

The Prenup Reduces the Discovery

The main reason for getting a prenup is to agree on specific issues that may bring controversies during the marriage or divorce. However, for you to make informed decisions, each of you is expected to reveal as much information as possible about themselves. This includes information about your respective finances. These are the same things that are tacked during the discovery process of a divorce. Therefore, if you have a good prenup, it means much of the information that the discovery process is meant to unearth is already there; therefore, the discovery period may shorten.

The Prenup Reduces the Duration and Cost of the Divorce

As a result of all the above things, your prenup may help you shorten your divorce and even make it cheaper. For example, the negotiations and discovery process will be shortened; even if you have to litigate your divorce, the court will find that some of the issues have already been handled by the prenup. This will also save you some money; for example, by trimming some of the legal costs and associated expenses.

You still need a family law attorney to help you with the divorce even if you have a prenup. After all, a prenup doesn't tackle all the issues you will force during your divorce; something like child custody or support is not the subject of a prenup.

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