You can avoid emotional and financial uncertainty with a pre-marital agreement.

If you are getting married in Minnesota for the second or third time, you should have a pre-marital agreement. Statistics show that 41% of first marriages end in divorce. That figure rises to 60% for second marriages, and 73% for third marriages. If you are considering remarriage, you should have a pre-marital agreement.

You can use a pre-marital agreement to save your pre-marital assets for your children. You can use it to address issues like a potential spousal maintenance obligation. A pre-marital agreement can be part of an estate plan, so you can say who inherits what.

I am not saying that your future spouse should not receive anything. But the laws of the State of Minnesota should not determine this. You should, with a pre-marital agreement.

I have significant expertise in pre-marital agreements. It is important that you have an experienced attorney write your pre-marital agreement because in Minnesota there are legal requirements that must be followed for your pre-marital agreement to be valid.

Here is an example from my own practice: a couple of years ago I represented a woman who was divorcing her second husband. She was receiving a significant amount of spousal maintenance from her first husband. She did not have a pre-marital agreement.

In her second divorce, my client’s second husband claimed that he was entitled to receive a portion of the spousal maintenance she received from her first husband. He claimed this was income to her, and therefore a source of spousal maintenance payments to him. Yes – he was trying to indirectly get my client’s first husband to pay spousal maintenance to him. You might think that’s nuts, but the divorce case went to trial.

I won the case. My client’s second husband was not awarded spousal maintenance. But the emotional uncertainty, and the cost of the litigation and the two-day trial could have been avoided if my client only had a pre-marital agreement before the wedding.

If you need a pre-marital agreement, call me (attorney Dan Fiskum) now at (952) 270-7700 for a free consultation to discuss whether a pre-marital agreement is right for you