Virginia Dugan, a Family Law Specialist at Atkinson & Kelsey, P.A, answers:
In the case of a second marriage, if the engaged couple both have children from their first marriages. Should they consider getting a prenuptial agreement?
Well, it isn’t romantic, but it is reasonable and it is practical. If you have assets coming into a second or a third marriage, you want to protect those assets for your family and for your children.
What you do is you set out on your schedules what one person owns and what the liability is, and you also set that out for the other person. It’s full disclosure of what you’re coming into the marriage with and what you will leave the marriage with in the event of a divorce.
In this case, if you have a house, the house is your house. It is your choice whether you want to share that house, put it into a joint tenancy. If you want to put the other person on the mortgage, if you want to leave them the house, you can do all those things. But you can also protect it and say, ‘I’m coming into the marriage with this house, I’m going to leave the marriage with the house.’
Virginia Dugan is a family law attorney with the Albuquerque firm of Atkinson & Kelsey. A recognized Specialist in Family Law and a frequent speaker and writer on family law topics, she exclusively practices divorce and matrimonial law. She served as President of the State Bar of New Mexico in 2006 and continues to serve as Vice Chair of the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education Committee. Learn more at www.atkinsonkelsey.com or view her firm’s Divorce Magazine profile here.
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