Blended Families, QTIPS, and Pre-Nups
The prenuptial or premarital agreement has always carried a particular stigma with it in the minds of some people. They reason that part of the decision that you make to ask someone to marry you involves entering into a holistic partnership. If you are not willing to share all that you have you are not ready to make a marriage commitment, right? To those who think this way asking your significant other to sign a premarital agreement is an absolute romance killer.
This perspective is understandable, but it is not the only way to look at the matter. Premarital agreements could be viewed in the opposite light, as vehicles that enable marriages that would never take place if these contracts did not exist. In addition, when you consider the matter of integrity, love of family, and personal responsibility, premarital agreements are often essential.
How is this so? It is because not all marriages involve fresh faced young adults with no children who are getting married for the first time. Up to half of all marriages end in divorce, 75% of people who are divorced remarry, and most of those who remarry are entering into the marriage with children from their previous marriage or marriages. If you remarry without a prenuptial agreement in place, how can you be sure your children will be provided for if you pass away? What if your surviving spouse remarries?
To be certain that your children will receive the inheritances that you have planned for them you can enter into a prenuptial agreement with your new spouse and draw up a qualified terminable interest property trust or QTIP. Upon your death your spouse receives all of the income that the trust earns for life, but you name the person who will assume ownership of the trust after your spouse passes away. Through the use of a qualified terminable interest property trust you are providing for your spouse appropriately while making sure that your children can never be disinherited after you are gone.
