Baton Rouge Asset Protection Attorney

In Louisiana, premarital agreements allow couples to define their own terms for asset division, potentially protecting assets from being considered marital property subject to division in a divorce. When developing a prenuptial agreement, be sure to include information about how specific assets are to be divided in the event of a divorce, including assets like:

• Real estate properties
• Vehicles (cars, boats, recreational vehicles, etc.)
• Financial accounts (bank accounts, savings accounts, investment accounts, etc.)
• Retirement accounts (401(k), IRA, pension plans, etc.)
• Business interests (ownership in businesses, partnerships, professional practices, etc.)
• Intellectual property (patents, copyrights, trademarks, etc.)
• Personal belongings with significant value
• Inheritance rights (assets received through inheritance or expected future inheritances, etc.)
• Future earnings and income (royalties, bonuses, stock options, etc.)
• Debts and liabilities (mortgages, loans, credit card debt, etc.)

By specifying how assets should be treated before the marriage even begins, individuals can ensure that their assets will be legally protected from separation in the event of a divorce. Contact our Baton Rouge prenuptial agreement lawyer to learn about your legal rights.

Even if you don’t establish a prenuptial agreement before the marriage, you can always establish a postnuptial agreement after the fact. A postnuptial agreement is similar to a prenup but is established after the couple gets married rather than before. 

If you and your spouse are considering establishing a postnup in Louisiana, our Baton Rouge asset protection attorneys can help ensure your postnuptial agreement is fair and enforceable under Louisiana laws in the event of a divorce. 

While having joint bank accounts can be beneficial during the marriage, it can significantly affect property division, especially when one spouse contributes more to a joint account than the other spouse. One key way to protect assets like bank accounts and retirement accounts from property division is to keep them entirely separate from your spouse for the duration of the marriage. 

Couples that use a separate bank account and avoid commingling their funds can potentially prevent separate funds from being divided as marital property in a divorce. 

However, it’s important to note that if these accounts are established during the marriage, they may still be treated as marital property and may be divided in a divorce. If you have a separate bank account or retirement account established before you got married, and you keep it separate from your spouse for the entirety of your marriage, then it may be considered sole property. 

Another asset protection strategy is to negotiate with your spouse regarding the separation of certain assets. For example, a couple may come to an agreement where one spouse keeps the marital house while the other spouse keeps the funds in their joint bank account. 

This can also help prevent you from having to pay taxes on your own property. As long as the transfers are made with “full and adequate consideration” of both parties, couples can transfer tax-free assets between one another during a divorce, allowing both to retain the assets they want to retain while also keeping their total taxable wealth the same.