Writer: Steve Dinnen
Sorry about that marriage that didn’t last. So now that you have to divvy up assets, what about Mister Mittens? Who gets the cat?
Turns out there is a solution to that – a prenuptial agreement. Millennials, it seems, have put a bit of a twist on these legal documents that expands their application. And it isn’t necessarily confined to the traditional use of a prenuptial agreement, which was to protect assets of the husband, or the wife, when there was a disparity of income and assets. (Prenuptial agreements also have been more common with second marriages, when the spouses typically are older and have built up asset bases of their own that they don’t wish to commingle.)
So pets can be, and are, subjected to prenups. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that embryo ownership now can fall under the governance of a prenup. Ditto for social media use, and even for student debt (although debt you acquired before you got married is not, in a state such as Iowa, a legal responsibility of a new spouse).
The Journal said that experts note that many millennials are children of divorced parents and have seen what can happen financially when a marriage ends. They’ve learned by example to plan ahead. And claim dibs on Mister Mittens.
