How to protect assets from divorce?

[The White Coat Investor]

Vagabond MD wrote:

Here’s the article I promised earlier (“How to Hide $400 Million”): http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/magazine/how-to-hide-400-million.html?_r=0

In thinking about this issue, when I was younger in my career and less settled on life’s journey, this was something that I thought about with some regularity. Now that I have some degree of financial security, I could say without hesitation that if my marriage ended tomorrow, I could shave off 60% of my net worth and give my wife and kids the house and still retire the following day and have an enviable lifestyle. So looking at this as the worst case scenario, it is not something that I spend much time worrying about, and the need for asset protection from a spouse might be a litmus test to true financial independence.

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Amazing how much less I could live on just by myself. But what I would expect is to not only give half my assets, but also be paying big alimony and child support payments. That would be a lot tougher.

[VagabondMD]

The White Coat Investor wrote:

Vagabond MD wrote:

Here’s the article I promised earlier (“How to Hide $400 Million”): http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/magazine/how-to-hide-400-million.html?_r=0

In thinking about this issue, when I was younger in my career and less settled on life’s journey, this was something that I thought about with some regularity. Now that I have some degree of financial security, I could say without hesitation that if my marriage ended tomorrow, I could shave off 60% of my net worth and give my wife and kids the house and still retire the following day and have an enviable lifestyle. So looking at this as the worst case scenario, it is not something that I spend much time worrying about, and the need for asset protection from a spouse might be a litmus test to true financial independence.

Click to expand…

Amazing how much less I could live on just by myself. But what I would expect is to not only give half my assets, but also be paying big alimony and child support payments. That would be a lot tougher.

Click to expand...

Purely hypothetical-- my children are teens, both in high school, close to launching with adequate college funding, and my wife has a career of her own, recently earning compensation comparable to my own. Perhaps I am naive, but I am pretty sure that I cannot be forced to work, and I may even be able to swing some alimony payments my way.

[The White Coat Investor]

I don't think you can be forced to work, but you can be forced to make alimony payments. You would just have to do it from your half of the pile.

Obviously every divorce agreement is different. If there are no kids in the house and you both have comparable incomes, I would hope that the nest egg would just be split down the middle and both go your separate ways.

[Craigy]

Vagabond MD wrote:

The White Coat Investor wrote:

Vagabond MD wrote:

Here’s the article I promised earlier (“How to Hide $400 Million”): http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/magazine/how-to-hide-400-million.html?_r=0

In thinking about this issue, when I was younger in my career and less settled on life’s journey, this was something that I thought about with some regularity. Now that I have some degree of financial security, I could say without hesitation that if my marriage ended tomorrow, I could shave off 60% of my net worth and give my wife and kids the house and still retire the following day and have an enviable lifestyle. So looking at this as the worst case scenario, it is not something that I spend much time worrying about, and the need for asset protection from a spouse might be a litmus test to true financial independence.

Click to expand…

Amazing how much less I could live on just by myself. But what I would expect is to not only give half my assets, but also be paying big alimony and child support payments. That would be a lot tougher.

Click to expand…

Purely hypothetical– my children are teens, both in high school, close to launching with adequate college funding, and my wife has a career of her own, recently earning compensation comparable to my own. Perhaps I am naive, but I am pretty sure that I cannot be forced to work, and I may even be able to swing some alimony payments my way.

Click to expand...

In some states you can be forced to make child support and/or alimony payments based on your potential income if you are voluntarily unemployed or underemployed.   :P

 

 

[JeffreyBrown]

This is a common scene in may divorce cases. Something similar happened with my friend.

[Hank]

Resurrecting a thread from last year? Check.
Ungrammatical English? Check.

Posting spam for some random law office in Beirut? Seems legit. ?

[Kamban]

Hank wrote:

Posting spam for some random law office in Beirut? Seems legit

Click to expand...

But, but , but ... she is not from Beirut, she is from the great nation of France, Monsieur