PRE-NUPS

[John F]

... in response to Re: My Expierience, posted by Richard on Oct 20, 2003

Read under the "Property Distribution" header on this page, you will need to scroll down a bit.

http://www.divorcelawinfo.com/states/fla/florida.htm

It says:

Property Division
Florida is an "equitable distribution" state. Each spouse can retain their non-marital property. Non-marital property is all property acquired prior to the marriage, or acquired by gift or inheritance, or any property that the spouses agree is non-marital property in a written agreement.

[thesearch]

... in response to Re: My Expierience, posted by Richard on Oct 20, 2003

That sucks.

A gal or guy could make a nice living marrying people with a nice house and then getting out of that marriage and getting another spouse with yet another house. Tap into a few million dollar homes that are paid for and you have a nice piece of change.

[MarkInTx]

... in response to Re: PRE-NUPS, posted by Globetrotter on Oct 20, 2003

This was discussed in detail in a thread about a year ago.

You really should check the archives, because it was a thourough discussion with a lot of valuable information.

I will say this, Globetrotter is right when he says: "it doesn't matter where you marry, but where one lives at the time of filing for divorce"... this is true regardless of whether you have a pre-nup or not.

To me, however, that speaks more about being careful where you choose to live, rather than whether you have a pre-nup...

I spoke with an attorney, and was advised that it was not worth it, since I lived in Texas, which is a community property state.

The problem is creating a pre-nup that can withstand a challenge, considering that she does not understand our laws, and probably does not understand our language.

This means that you will have to hire an attorney for her that understands both. (Which means that you will be paying for two attorneys. One for her, and one for you...) And, if you make her sign it while she is here during the 90 day period before you marry (assuming she is here on a K-1) it is pretty easy for her to claim that she signed it under duress ("Your honor, he told me that if I didn't sign it, I had to go home...")

If you "negotiate" a strong pre-nup (i.e., "...if we divorce, you get nothing and have to go home") then it will be very difficult to have it stand up in court, considering that the court will look at that as unfair, and then the fact that both attorneys were hired by you will loom as very large.

If you negotiate a fair settlement for the two of you (i.e., if we divorce, I keep everything I had before you got here, and everything we built together we split 50-50) you may end up with exactly what your state (such as Texas, for me) would have given anyway... so why bother with a pre-nup?

The point is, it is very much worth a trip to your attorney.

It always fascinates me when guys on here, who are not married, will offer "sage advice" about things they have never experienced... Listen, some of the guys on here will claim to be experts in just about everything, but believe me, none of them will be going to court with you when the time comes...

You should speak with an attorney who will be...

IMHO