The Financial Pros and Cons of Marriage
Dawn Cardi is a founding partner at Cardi & Edgar LLP. She has considerable experience in corporate and securities law, and has spent dozens of years as a matrimonial attorney, representing individuals in divorce and custody proceedings. She joins Stacy Francis to talk about the financial advantages and disadvantages of both formal marriage and common law marriage.
- People are often shocked to learn that when they get married, everything they earn, except for certain exceptions, becomes marital property regardless of whose name it is in. Exceptions include inheritances and third party gifts that you don’t commingle into your joint bank account.
- The biggest issues for common law spouses, according to Dawn, are that they are not accumulating joint wealth that can be distributed during a divorce, they are not accumulating joint retirement monies, and they are not eligible for spousal support.
- Dawn recommends that couples sign postnuptial agreements if one spouse is going to be a stay-at-home parent, or if the couple is moving out of the country to a place where one spouse cannot get employment.
- Statistics show that divorced women over the age of 65 are the most likely women to live below or at the poverty line.
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Email: stacy@francisfinancial.com
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