Do you own your own business or are you in a professional practice? Are you considering marriage? Louisville business owners need a prenuptial agreement before marriage to protect their business interests.
You’ve invested a lot of your time, hard work, energy, worry, money and courage to start or acquire a business and build it. Now you’ve found someone you wish to share your life with, and are considering marriage. This could be your first marriage, or it may be a subsequent marriage. In any event Louisville business owners need a prenuptial agreement before marriage to protect and preserve all they’ve built.
Louisville business owners need a prenuptial agreement before marriage as a basic planning tool regarding business succession. You have no idea what business opportunities await in the near or distant future. Your business is a separate asset which you worked hard to build. Your prenuptial agreement simply preserves this asset as a “separate” asset.
You may or may not presently have co-owners or partners. You don’t really know for sure what the future holds. Each owner should protect their ownership position in the business from outside interests.
Many entrepreneurs are fearless when it comes to business deals and associated risks. However, the thought of asking your beloved for a prenuptial agreement seems daunting.
We can thank television dramas and news stories about the rich and famous for this one.
How are you going to approach this? The first and most important concept is this:
Any successful marriage requires the spouses to be able to have open, productive conversations and the ability to work through areas of disagreement to find consensus. Not a win or a loss, a mutual agreement.
If you aren’t able to honestly discuss important issues and work through areas of minor or major disagreement what does this say about the long term?
Of course you can have substantive talks. That’s why you are considering marriage. So how will you approach this one?
The most common argument against a prenuptial agreement is “This is pre-planning our divorce!” How would you answer this concern?
Lets think through this together. You have life insurance though the odds of passing away in your own mind are slim or none. You have car insurance even though you’ve never been in an accident or perhaps even gotten a ticket (though there is a minimum amount required by law!).
The point is you don’t have health insurance because you expect or intend to get sick. You don’t carry life insurance because you expect or intend to die. These are reasonable, prudent precautions to provide necessary life protections.
Louisville business owners need a prenuptial agreement before marriage as a basic planning tool regarding business succession. You have no idea what business opportunities await in the near or distant future. Your business is a separate asset which you worked hard to build. Your prenuptial agreement simply preserves this asset as a “separate” asset.
You will need to keep the business completely separate from community funds. It’s part of the corporate veil which protects the business from creditors.
You might want to consider a “sunset clause” which modifies or terminates the terms of the prenup after a period of time (such as 20 years). You might even want to “phase” the sunset in over a period of time.
We invite you to review the strong recommendations of our former clients and contact us or call 502-584-1108 to schedule an appointment with one of our experienced divorce and family law attorneys.
