Need A Prenup? You never know... | Aaron Thomas

Attorney Aaron Thomas is a 2002 graduate from Harvard Law School and a 1998 graduate of Emory University. Since 2004, Aaron has been known as a skilled litigator, winning dozens of jury trials and bench trials in several metro Atlanta counties. But better than all of the courtroom success, Aaron’s proudest achievements are providing quality, empathetic service, to his clients who are often going through one of the toughest periods of their lives. While he’s won many awards, the most treasured are those voted on solely by his clients - he’s the three time reigning winner of Atlanta’s Best Divorce Attorney from Best Self Magazine, Avvo’s Client’s Choice Award, and Martindale-Hubbell’s Gold Client Champion. 

Aaron Thomas Law represents clients in traditional family law cases: divorce (contested and uncontested), legitimation/custody, and child support. Aaron Thomas Law also helps clients who need to either enforce or modify their custody and child support orders. 

In 2020, Aaron founded Prenups.com, a friendly and fair take on the premarital/postmarital agreement, which has gotten a bad reputation, but can be a useful tool for couples that want to start their financial relationship in an intentional, transparent, and fair way. Learn more about “the prenup that helps you stay married,” by downloading the free ebook “7 Financial Strategies for Building a Rock-Solid Marriage” at www.prenups.com. 

Aaron also operates Practice Pros, a marketing firm that helps solve the problem he once had marketing his business:“I know consistent posts on social media are important to stay top of mind with friends, family, and other referral sources. I know sending out a newsletter each and every month is important to stay top of mind with past clients and colleagues. But when I get busy, working on a client’s case wins over drafting a post every time! Firms like mine need dedicated help from marketing professionals, who know how to follow the rules specific to lawyers.” Practice Pros manages the parts of your marketing plan you don’t have time for: newsletters, social media, reputation management, and more.

Firm Website: aaronthomaslaw.com

Prenups/Postnup website: prenups.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aaron-thomas-law/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063680104859

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi293c0bKrOKlXNHH92ACFg

Transcript

intro guy: 0:01

Welcome to the Josh Bolton show where we dive into interesting and inspiring conversations. And now your host, Josh Bolton.

Josh Bolton: 0:15

Welcome everybody. Today we have Aaron Thomas, an awesome dude, lawyer by trade, specifically in family, he probably will correct me later. And it's one of those we were just talking about the statistics and how a prenup is actually very useful, and it's not going to damage your relationship. And Aaron will explain it better take it away, Aaron.

Aaron T: 0:37

Yeah, yeah. Um, so you're correct. I do family law. I am a lawyer. Do you know family law for those that that don't recognize the term is, you know, typically divorce, custody, child support, and, of course, Prenuptial agreements. And, you know, like I was telling you, Josh, you know, my, my take on Prenuptial agreements is that they are, you know, mainly misunderstood. You know, what do you think of when you think of a prenuptial agreement?

Josh Bolton: 1:11

Well, like I was telling you earlier, everyone tells me all your damaged relationships from the beginning, you're assuming no trust the person. And it's one of those. I've always been skeptical, I don't take things at face value. So if the person is a good fit, and they understand, it's like, I'm looking out for my back and your back, and everyone's like, it's just, it's for the rich, like you were saying, earlier eras. Which kind of thing?

Aaron T: 1:33

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think I think, you know, when I, when I asked this question, I get, you know, a lot of answers, but they typically revolve around, you know, the two things that you brought up. One is that, therefore, the super rich, you know, some people even go as far as to say, you know, it's a rich older man, trying to give their money away from a young, gold digging wife. And that it is essentially saying that the marriage is over, you know, before it even starts. And, you know, you know, another way that I like to look at it is, you know, you know, prenuptial agreement is essentially it's a contract, it's like any other contract, can it be used to, you know, keep money out of the hole hands of gold diggers? Sure. But it's all about how you use it. It's a tool like any other tool would be, meaning that a lot of the people and specifically the clients that I target, in my business at prenups, calm is, is the the type of people who they just want to be fair, they want to know where they stand, they want to know what assets belong to me, what assets belong to you? What are things that we are building together and our joint responsibilities and joint assets? And what things do we kind of keep the other one protected for? You know, the, the, the reason that I think that prenups are really relevant today, and needed for kind of the modern couple is, there's a difference between the type of marriage that our parents got involved in versus our generation, right? So my parents got married in the 60s. And in the 60s, the average age of somebody getting married was about 2021 years old, they got married right out of college. Back then, credit cards had barely come around that, you know, people didn't really have a ton of credit card debt, student loan debt, didn't even compare to what people have today, in terms of, you know, student debt, six figures of it, you know, the average person who was 20, didn't have mortgage, they didn't have a 401k. They didn't own any, you know, significant property. And so the couple that was getting married in the 60s, you know, at age 2021, it was really like two people starting a startup together from from complete scratch, whereas the average couple who gets married today, is closer to age 30. At the time of a first marriage, interesting. Yeah, they've typically got multiple bank accounts, multiple credit cards, you know, one or both spouses will have a mortgage and some kind of equity in a piece of property and their name, likely they've got retirement accounts. And maybe most importantly, of all, they've got like 10 years of financial habits of having lived on their own separate from their parents, and they're entrenched in these kind of financial habits, you know, by age 30. You know, if you're a spender, or if you're a saver, you know, if you're OCD about every penny that leaves the house, or if you're kind of, you know, spend it all and worry about it later. And so combining two financial lives at age 30, like the modern couple typically does. It's not like a startup from scratch. It's like you're merging to fully formed corporations. And you just never do something that monumental without having a serious sit down about okay, what are the ground rules? How is this going to work combining our two financial lives together?

Josh Bolton: 5:04

Right? Yeah, it's it's one of those how I explained it is anything in life as a relationship. Like, sounds weird right now we're we're just a mild relationship building fire podcast, business, same business, same thing and interacting with people, it's. But if you're the relationship doesn't work. That's that's where as I'm listening, I'm starting to catch like, then that's might when you want to the prenup that you were saying like, during the marriage is like, Okay, this is yours. This is ours. And if we crossed any of these lines, then we'll just cross that bridge and figure out what the problem is after that. Right.

Aaron T: 5:44

Yeah, yeah. You know, and I think, you know, a lot of couples have a challenge bringing their financial lives together, because we don't talk about money in society. It's taboo. Yeah. You know, you're not supposed to talk about what you make not supposed to talk about how much debt you have. People are embarrassed by how much debt they have, you know, if you got a ton of credit card debt or student loan debt, it's not something you really want to share, right? And, you know, it's actually another kind of hidden benefit of having a prenup is having a for your prenup to be enforceable, you have to disclose all your assets and debts to the other spouse. Interesting. Yeah, you got to put it down. Literally, every pre of that I draft has a schedule that says our spouse one spouse two, we list out all their assets and debts add up with their net worth is at the time of the marriage. And just that kind of process alone. That forced transparency at the beginning of the marriage, I think sets a good precedent for being transparent about finances during the marriage. I mean, nobody wants to be married five years, and then all of a sudden look up and find out, Oh, you've got you got 50 grand of credit card debt, oh, you got $20,000 of debt to the IRS. And that's why we're not getting a refund from our joint tax return, you know, or, you know, any kind of surprises like that during the marriage, or they hurt the relationship. So kind of getting all of that out there on the front end. And setting in motion this habit of we're going to be transparent with each other about our finances. And you know, what kind of debt we have and our expenses is a good habit for a couple to have, even if they never get divorced. It's a good idea. You know, it's a benefit of a prenup that couples get, even if they never get divorced.

Josh Bolton: 7:30

Now, this is just a cynical one in me. What if someone doesn't fully disclose all their debt? They say they have the depth. They don't put the accurate mallet ballpark, it's going to say I'm 4500 bla bla and change. But they just say our 5k kind of thing. Does that happen? Or is it like you actually, like get their statements say, oh, no, you owe 4556 kind of thing? Yeah,

Aaron T: 7:53

well, the thing about it is for the agreement to be enforceable, for you to benefit from that agreement, you have to disclose all your assets. And so if you are the party that did not disclose their assets in the prenuptial agreement, and then later on, you say, hey, I want you know, court judge, I want you to enforce this prenuptial agreement, the other spouse can choose to have it thrown out if they think it's to their benefit, because you didn't disclose your assets. I haven't seen a lot of that happen. I think most people understand, you know, the importance and certainly, you know, clients that work with my office, we we, you know, underscore the importance of being 100% transparent with your assets and debts. And we do take some other precautions, you know, we we recommend that couples exchange their tax returns, which can also give you know, kind of an idea of, you know, somebody's financial state, you need to go so far as to have people exchange their credit reports, you know, pulling out their credit reports. But that kind of, you know, radical transparency is what we're trying to encourage on the front end. And if you don't disclose your assets, it can only hurt you in the back end. You can't you can't have the prenup throw out if you're the one that chose not to disclose your assets, but you give the other spouse that that power if you're the one hiding things, you know, as part of the prenup process.

Josh Bolton: 9:18

Interesting. So I'm just like, for me, I'm thinking like, let's say, I know, eventually I'm going to be investing in real estate, and different stuff. And it's one of those. It's like the slip of the mind. Like let's say I had 10 properties when I didn't, I don't remember like buying one. I still pay my taxes, but it's one of those I forgot to list a property. Would that be held against me in the court? It was like, Oh, I shoot. That was like 20 years ago. How was I supposed to remember it kind of thing?

Aaron T: 9:44

Yeah, I mean, I think it depends. You know, the, the rule is that it's got to be kind of a material omission. I mean, there's got to be a meaningful omission. If the other spouse had a duty general idea that, hey, you got this, you know, you've got this real estate business going on and you have a lot of properties and maybe, you know, properties are coming in and out. You know, I think that a court might give you a reasonable amount of allowance for, you know, maybe there was something that was forgotten or left dot left out. But if it's determined by the court by the judge that you were doing this on purpose to defraud the other spouse or to hide assets, you know, to kind of gain an advantage in the negotiation of the prenup itself, then yeah, you're gonna you're potentially gonna be in trouble there.

Josh Bolton: 10:35

Right? Like I was saying, it's one of those you bought, like, it would be like, the back in a way. I didn't buy anything back, but I'm just hypothetically, like, I'm just bought up a lot of properties eventually made my money just sold them. Just one of those. I like, keep proper Ledger's, but it's one of those. Oh, shoot, there was that one? I literally got it for 50k at a fancy I was chump change. I totally forgot about that house kind of thing.

Aaron T: 10:57

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you have a chance, but the safest thing to do is to, you know, use that time when you're preparing the prenuptial agreement to do you know, a full sweep of your assets and debts, try to make sure that everything

Josh Bolton: 11:14

I want to say from what it sounds like, what you're telling me is, like 90% of people are actually pretty honest. But what they got, I mean, you would want to if you really actually like this person to be pretty honest.

Aaron T: 11:24

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, if something is left out, you know, it's not unusual for somebody to come back, you know, a few months later say, Oh, by the way, I forgot this thing. And we can do an amendment and have everybody sign off on it. So it's, you know, so you're not at the place where you've been married for 10 years, and maybe then you know, the marriage is falling apart, you're going divorce, and then it's like, Oops, oh, by the way, here's this asset, I never disclosed, you know, you know, 10 years ago, right, I think that situation would be pretty rare. I mean, I think most couples that come to this process, understand that if they want to benefit from, you know, from the agreement that they're signing, that they both need to be 100%, forthcoming, and transparent, or, you know, with all the information that goes into the document.

Josh Bolton: 12:08

So this is now just a curiosity question, and it might just help everyone else. Let's just say, I call you up, we get the structure, me and my partner there and all that we fly out and everything. Um, but I want to say okay, like, as long as me and my partner together, like we can share the benefits, but the moment any of us wants to separate my assets of mine, like, whatever's in my name, you can't touch anything, does that prenup protect from that? Or is it more like a shield? If they can figure out a way? Trickery they can actually still take the stuff in my name?

Aaron T: 12:43

Yeah, so the most common? It's a great question. I mean, the most common kind of arrangement that we do for prenups is what I call a title based prenup. Okay. So, you know, the way that you title things would determine the ownership in the event of a split. And so, you know, for example, and I'll give you an example and why this is so important. Because, you know, in a normal marriage, what the law says about your finances is something that is so counterintuitive, that it shocks most people and most people don't recognize it until they're actually going through a divorce case themselves. And what that is, is the second that you get married, every dollar that you earn. If you don't have a prenup, my argument is that even if you don't sign a prenup, you have a prenup. It's just that your prenup is written by the state laws of wherever you happen to live. And it's the contract that you've never read, you know, before you signed it, you get married. And what the law says is every dollar that you earn, while you're married, is considered a joint asset. It doesn't matter if that money goes into account that's only in your name. It doesn't matter if that is, you know, your rent from a piece of property that you owned, you know, prior to the marriage, but you're still paying the mortgage on it. Essentially, the day that you're married, everything is considered marital assets. So the money that you're putting in a 401k that, you know, that comes in. If you had that 401k prior to the date you got married, that's technically your separate property, meaning it's not a marital asset that's up for division. But the second that you put one deposit into that 401k account, or into that brokerage account, or into that checking or savings account, you have then commingle that account. And then from that day forward, assume that it's a joint asset that's up for division. Because you've commingled that account. And so when people get divorced, they say, Well, no, no, I have that. 401k I had 100 grand in that 401k You know at that, you know when we got married or I had 200 grand of equity in that house already before we got married or you know, whatever asset that is right. But if you're contributing to the value of that asset during the Then you commingled it. And then when it's time to get divorced, that's why people spend 10s of 1000s of dollars on attorneys to try to hash out how much you know of should be theirs and how much should belong to their spouse, when there's such an easier way just to kind of like lock in on a piece of paper in a form of a prenup and say, All right, you know, I got 200 grand in my 401k. Now, I get that off the top, if anything ever happens, you know, in the event of a divorce, I've got 150 grand of equity in my house or I own, you know, then I get to keep that plus any appreciation on that amount, you know, if the marriage ever ends, and then it also gives you the ability under the title based prenup to say, Okay, anything that's in my name belongs to me, anything that's in your name belongs to you, and anything that we want to be considered a joint asset, we'll put in joint names. And that way you can say, all right, my 401k, the contributions that I can continue putting in during the marriage that just belongs to me, and you do the same for your 401k. I'm not that way, I don't get to come and muddy the waters and take a piece of your 401k. Or we get to have an argument about how much did you have when we got married? How much did you put in during the marriage. Same thing with houses with bank accounts, with business interests, it keeps the things very cleaned during the marriage so that if you want something to be considered a joint asset, you get your title in both names. So you and your partner want to go out and buy a piece of property. And it's going to be in joint investment, the title in both of your names. But if you want to get a piece of property, and it's just going to be your side kind of thing. You don't want your spouse to have you know, any interest in it, then you put it in your name only, and they have the ability to do the same thing on their end. But you just you're transparent and you communicate about it that everybody knows where they stand, and there's no confusion down the road.

Josh Bolton: 16:47

Now that's clarified a lot of what I was asking it was the title based prenup, alright, because that's one of those. I've talked to different people. And as one of them I said, like, Isn't there one where like, whatever's in their name is theirs. I mean, if they want to share, obviously, that's okay kind of thing. But like when the division comes, it's like, the line has to be drawn. It's like, okay, but this is still there's even though I was like politeness like we're living in the same house, I'll pay you like 50% to help out kind of thing. Okay, that's good. That's good to know.

Aaron T: 17:19

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's exactly what you're talking about. It allows you to say, All right, the income that is coming off of the properties I owe, or the income that's coming off the businesses that I own, as long as we're married, I'll take that money, and I'll put it in the joint account, we can pay the bills from it, we can share it in great vacations, we all enjoy the benefits of it. But if the marriage doesn't work out, that you don't get to come and take away the business that I've worked so hard to build or the property that I you know, that I've invested in over the years.

Josh Bolton: 17:46

Right, that was literally what I was thinking, because I'm like, how everyone's like, Oh, it's just gonna ruin it's like, well, yes, and no, it's like, like you're saying insurance is like, is drawing the lines but obviously with like, like the commingled bank account, wherever it is, both of you have access both you can get on your phone kind of thing. It's hard to say whatever's there must for both of us. So did now this is just an our technical question that came up, let's say there is the title based one if we have the commingled with the only tricky part with the whole thing is the commingled sharing of the assets or that's just simple. Oh, they did this and this kind of thing.

Aaron T: 18:27

Yeah, well, you know, it depends what state you're living in. So like, you know, California is a community property state. I'm here in Georgia, which is an equitable division state. The majority of states in the United States are equitable division states. You know, California is one of like eight or nine community property states where essentially the law says, You split whatever your marital assets are 5050 No, almost no questions asked, even to prenup? No, no, if you have a prenup, you basically can opt out of whatever your state's laws are, and your own rules for how your assets and debts will be treated in the event that the marriage dissolves at some point. And really, whether you live in community proper state or Necco Division state, like why not create your own rules that you write rather than to write laws that can change from time to time, without you knowing you have no idea, you know, how these laws, you know, you know, treat your assets and debts. But, you know, the the other thing that happens, particularly instincts like mine, where they're at the revision stage is, is not just about figuring out what's your separate property and what's considered marital property, which, you know, millions and millions of dollars are spent just on having lawyers try to figure that out alone. I bet. It's like mine, you can say, all right, well, you know, in Georgia, your behavior during the marriage is something that the court can take into account when deciding how to split your assets. So you can say literally like, well You know, she cheated on me or he was, you know, mean to me and cursed me out all the time and asked the judge to give the other spouse less of your money based on like your behavior during the marriage.

Josh Bolton: 20:15

I think I need to move states then let's do funny.

Aaron T: 20:17

Yeah, yeah. And like, literally, it is like it, there's a benefit for mudslinging. Like, the more that you air out your dirty laundry in a courtroom, the more you could potentially financially benefit from. That's insane.

Josh Bolton: 20:32

That's insane. So it's like, literally, it's like, you look at the judge, she pitches at me every day. And it's like, oh, how bad and she starts going off like that every day.

Aaron T: 20:42

Yeah, you could come sit in one of our it would have our girl was in trials and like, you're not that far off, you're not that far off in terms of like, what happens. And people do that, because they think that it will give them by now a lot of judges, they don't care. You know, like I you guys built this, this marital estate together, I'm going to split off into 50 Anyway, but some judges do. And so a lot of people will roll the dice and give their money to, you know, Divorce Lawyer isn't I know, I'm one of them. But they'll give their money to divorce lawyers read this put it amongst themselves? Because they think that, you know, either they answer whatever, yeah, for the chance, they might get a, you know, a larger share of the mental state, or just because they use it as an opportunity to to, you know, air out their complaints, you know, their gripes against the other spouse, it's kind of their, their day in court, so to speak, that they get to complain about the other spouse, whether it's in their financial interest to do so or not. And what I have found is that for most couples, it's in their best interest to just decide ahead of time, those things aren't going to matter. Here's how we're going to handle our finances during the marriage. And yes, if we end up getting divorce, let's not spend a year and $75,000 in a courtroom, let's just split our money cleanly. You know, and without nobody ever says, you know, I really want a long and messy and expensive divorce.

Josh Bolton: 22:06

Crazy person might know,

Aaron T: 22:08

right? A crazy person might but most sane individuals are going to say, if I have to go down that road, I would like it to be quick and as painless as possible. And you know, a well written prenup can do that, as well as give you some clarity as to how your finances should be handled during the relationship itself.

Josh Bolton: 22:30

So can you go into details on the how it should be done? The how the money relationship part? Like what are some of the like, I know each state is different when it comes to that. But general structure of a prenup what is? How Digital's world rules work during the relationship?

Aaron T: 22:46

Yeah, yeah, no, great question. You know, and, and just to give one additional resource for your listeners, I've got a free ebook on my website, prenups, calm, seven financial strategies for a rock solid relationship. And I go into more detail there. But generally, what I have found is that you set up kind of three buckets, three bank accounts, I'm not saying you only have to have three bank accounts, kind of three categories, you've got, you got, you know, spouse, one, you've got spouse two, and then you've got the shared joint bank account. And it is worth sitting down is not a painful process, you can usually do it in one day, and sit down and write down what are all our expenses that come out, in an average month or an average year, you know, you got something you know, like rent or mortgage to place you're going to be living together, you got your utilities, and then you take each of these expenses in you drop it into one of these three categories, is this truly a joint expense of ours? Or is this something that's just my expense or your expense. So, you know, some of the joint expenses are kind of easy, identify the place where you're going to be living, right, your rent, or your mortgage should come out of the joint bank account, your utilities typically is going to come out of the joint bank account, you go out to eat a meal, you know, in a restaurant together, you go on a trip together, those are things that are truly joint expenses, then you got things that might be my expense at your expense. So for example, you know, in my relationship, you know, I am, I'm a bring my lunch to work kind of guy, you know, so like, you know, if my wife wants to go out, eat lunch, you know, from from work every day, like, you know, I want that to come from her bank account, because I'm not there. When she's having those lunches. I'm not making that purchase, or if she's going shopping on her own that wants to come out of that should come out of her bank account. Meanwhile, you know, I've got, you know, I've got this thing where I gotta have the new phone every year, you know, doesn't draw on my old phone. I just want the new phone, you know, because it came out right? Shiny. Right, and my wife isn't gonna go out and buy the new phone every year. So yeah, that's that's totally fair for that expense to come out of my separate bank account, you know, gift that we're buying for each other, you know, and what it does is a couple of things. One, it protects me if the other spouse is a spender and a saver or vice versa, you know, her kind of discretionary spending doesn't impact me, mine doesn't impact her. And in fact, it saves a much argument. So those kinds of expenses, because I don't even see it, you know, there's no like, I can't believe you spent this much, you know, at the mall, I can't believe you spent this much, you know, on Amazon, because those expenses are only coming out of her bank account, so I don't even see them. It's only her business. And, you know, we're all adults, we shouldn't, we shouldn't be able to have our own bank accounts where we can do our own spending without, you know, the oversight of our spouse. So setting up those three kind of bank accounts, you know, is a good first step for couples to take and kind of defining that, you know, in your prenuptial agreement, and then you also want to take a look and say, What are each of us bringing into the relationship, you know, so if I'm coming in with 10 grand in credit card debt, 20 grand borrowers debt, 100 grand student loan debt, if something happens in the marriage doesn't work out, you shouldn't be responsible for that debt that I brought into the relationship, you shouldn't be responsible for debt on a credit card that I take out during the marriage that you don't know about. And that like I'm running up expenses, you know, that you don't know about, that should only be, you know, my expense. Whereas if you don't have a prenup, you know, and you go to court, the courts gonna start with the assumption that any debts you guys took out, even if they're only in your own name, during the marriage, the courts gonna start out with the assumption that those are joint debts. And so you could be left on the hook for debts that your spouse is taking out on a credit card that is only in their name that you might not have even known about. And you can end up paying for 50% of those down the line. That's another kind of common sense thing that couples can do in their prenup to say, All right, if I take a debt, that's only in my name, I'm responsible for it. If I'm coming into the marriage with debt, only, I'm responsible for it, you know, if I own a piece of property, prior to the marriage, okay, I'll pay the mortgage, I'll be responsible for any debts associated, I'll be responsible for any taxes associated with it, because it's mine. It's not something that's going to be commingled and, you know, whatever the mortgage payments were made during marriage, that's marital, you know, asset and whatever I had coming in, you know, that's my separate asset. And so we've got this mixed, you know, thing that's partially marital and partially separate? No, you create some clear dividing lines as to what belongs to each spouse and what belongs to the couple. And then I like to suggest the couples make, you know, some additional rules that basically I've like reverse engineered from doing divorce for the last 15 years, you know, what are the things that couples argue about when it comes to money? And we can we eliminate some of those things on the front end? So like one thing that couples argue about it is, you know, well, you made this humongous purchase without consulting me first. Right. And that's not fair. You made that from the joint bank account. And you didn't consult me. And now we got this big $1,000 Charge coming out of the joint bank account. And so a lot of couples like to put a rule in their prenup where we will discuss every purchase over X number of dollars before we make it that at least that comes out of the joint bank account. You know, so for some couples that might be$200. For some couples, it's$1,000, for some couples might be $10,000. But everybody's got a number where, you know, they don't want the other person making an expense too large from the joint money.

Josh Bolton: 28:28

That's what I was thinking about. As you're explaining everything. It's the Okay, that's great. We do the title base, but that joint account like how who is there one person who charges they're going to have to hire you again and be like you say, Oh, Josh puts this money in and you can only pull X amount out. So now from that rules, I go, Yeah, it's like I could be the money guy and I just divvy everything out fair and square like a robot. And then it's like, oh, you shorted me as like, No, this this like this month, you said take 500 out for vacation kind of thing. And I took 500 out too, so we both only got 1000 Yeah, okay, so that's that rule thing. Perfect. That was that's what I've been thinking about this whole time on my shoot. What if this person just decided to get the carbon purchases like a $30,000 car I recall him telling me this like, what the hell?

Aaron T: 29:15

Right? Right. Right. We it's a will usually write in a clause where, you know, if somebody makes, you know, a big purchase without, without consulting the other spouse, then they're on the hook for that. The other spouse has the right to get reimbursed for that. Another thing you know, you mentioned you mentioned, you know, vacations. I like to tell couples that, you know, the the prenup, you know, you don't think about it as being the most romantic thing. But like, let's use it as an opportunity. Like, what are your shared financial goals? You know, so for example, you know, in my household travel is the big thing for me and my wife. And so we came up with a rule where all right, you know, 5% of all joint funds are automatically going to get trapped and transferred into like the travel fund account. And then when we have you know, like when we want to take a vacation the money's already there, we've got the budget for it, we've set it aside, and couples can do this for anything, you know, like, what are the joint goals? Yeah. Do you want to purchase a house together? Do you plan on having a baby or trying to save for college, you know, and set aside money so that, you know, it doesn't have to be all, you know, like legal X's and O's, you can, you can, you know, decide what your joint goals are together and kind of pre plan that you're going to set money aside for the things and, and make it part of your agreement. Another thing that I love to suggest to couples is, you know, one thing that causes stress for some couples is, you know, when family or friends come and ask to loan money, you know, and so some, but a, and that's something that can create a big fight, you know, $1,000, to my mom, you know, and so couples will sometimes put a rule in their prenup that says, we can only loan money to family and friends from our separate money accounts. So that money can never come from the joint account. And what it does is it actually gives some cover to the spouse who's getting hit up by the family member for a loan and say, look, I can only lend you money from my from my separate fund. And I've only got like,$500 in there. So like, I'm limited as to how much I can help you out. Right. And it both reduces arguments between the couple, and gives them like, you know, some protection from like, you know, potential outside, you know, you know, drains on on the marital money. So, you're really only limited by your creativity in terms of coming up with, you know, these additional rules that can protect the couple from from having arguments down the road.

Josh Bolton: 31:35

So what are the other things you see that you've reverse engineered? For couples breaking up?

Aaron T: 31:42

Yeah, another another great thing is, you know, a lot of couples, when they come to my office for a divorce, for example, we'll say, Well, you know, I tried to tell him or her that, you know, the relationship, you know, needed work and tried to get them to go to counseling, they wouldn't do it, you know, they said they needed. And so we'll write in counseling clauses into the prenuptial agreement, where if either spouse decides, hey, we want to go do counseling, the other spouse is required to go for, you know, three sessions or six sessions to try to work it out. Or at least, even if they end up splitting, at least give them an opportunity to try to come together and agree to do it amicably. And not do this drag out public fight where they spend a bunch of their money, you know, on lawyers fighting it out. And kind of along that same line of thought, I love putting in to these agreements, a requirement that the parties go to mediation, prior to either spouse being allowed to file a divorce case, and just FYI, courts enforce these provisions. Courts will say, Alright, you've filed a case, but you haven't done your mediation first, you got to dismiss your case and go give it a try. You haven't done your three required counseling session first, you know, sessions first, you got to dismiss your case and go give it a try. So that can sometimes that's impressive. Yeah, that can be like the, like cooling off period, so to speak, that couples need, you know, to go to a counselor who can talk them through and say, hey, you know, you know, in a great, you know, in a perfect scenario, maybe they don't actually need to get divorced, maybe they work on their issues and end up getting back together. But in a worst case scenario, at least they've got an opportunity to try to do things amicably before they go and you know, spend spend a bunch of money on lawyers or, you know, get in a courtroom and fight it out for a year. I mean, and they don't even talk about like the impact on you know, kids have a messy divorce, you know, messy divorces aren't good for kids, you know, they're not sure you know, so you know, I love putting in some of these like, kind of cooling off provisions, or giving the couple an opportunity to settle things on their own. Before things get too far down the litigation, litigation road.

Josh Bolton: 33:56

Yeah, that I've heard some horror stories, like people not having prenups and 30 years later, they have all this these assets that have grown but they don't really know who is who what is what, I don't want to get down to it. And the lawyers are just clashing for like a year and a half, two years to come to realize like hypothetic at least in California would be true. It's like the wife got like 70% of the money and it's like wait, you just love me literally the dog and not even a car kind of thing.

Aaron T: 34:25

Yeah, yeah, I mean there's there's there's no shortage of horror stories. Just like you know what you've what you've heard what you're talking about. Oh, yeah. And they're totally avoidable.

Josh Bolton: 34:39

That's awesome. Yeah. So is it just the the money and the structured agreements is the stuff you see what are what are Navy past prenup like or could be involved with the prenup like cheating or? I don't know. I I mostly know of cheating hands. arguing for divorces. So,

Aaron T: 35:02

yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. We we do sometimes put in infidelity or adultery clauses into Prenuptial agreements. You know an example of that might look like okay if one spouse had an affair than that spouse gets a smaller percentage of the marital asset. So say your prenup says that. The default is I get what's in my name, you get what's in your name. And we split 5050 down the center, whatever is in joint names, if we get divorce, and in adultery clause might look like if you're the one that had an affair, then you get 40% of the joint assets for 30% of the joint assets instead of 50.

Josh Bolton: 35:44

I was just thinking brutal. Mike, if you cheat on me, it's like you only get 20%.

Aaron T: 35:48

Right, right. Oh, yeah, as drastic as you want to make that clause just knowing that it's going to apply to you too, right? Well, if you know, the facts turned out to be the other way around. And so some couples like to put that in there. I mean, it does require an extra step. Because then you got to figure out you know, who's going to determine whether you cheated or not right, if somebody will not know

Josh Bolton: 36:12

so the how elderness together is the amendments, the clauses the oil pan? Yeah.

Aaron T: 36:18

Yeah. So, you know, I, I have, you know, I am I am iffy on the effectiveness of the adultery clause, because, you know, if somebody is going to cheat, you know, they're not likely to say, Well, my prenup says I can, you know, so they're gonna do it anyways. Yeah, they're gonna do it anyway. Most people think they're going to get away with it. But, you know, I do sometimes, however, see it in post nuptial agreements. Where, you know, in a post nuptial is essentially the same as a prenup, but you sign it after you've already been married.

Josh Bolton: 36:53

That's what I was gonna ask next later on is like, is there one after marriage? Where it's like, Yes, we love each other. And we realize certain things come up. So we might want to do something.

Aaron T: 37:03

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, a fair amount of the prenups, you know, the post nuts that I do usually fall into one or two categories. So one is we wanted to get a prenup, and we just ran out of time before the wedding, you know, so we're just gonna do it after you know, the wedding. And we'll call it a post up. But then there are, you know, the people who they've come at a crossroads somewhere in the relationship, and they realize that we'd be better off for them to go ahead, at least while they're still on, you know, speaking terms, or while they're trying to save the relationship, and go ahead and put some terms down in writing. Now, rather than let things get to where they're not even on speaking terms, and they're at each other's throats, and they can't agree on anything, in terms of what goes into agreement. So, you know, I've had this situation where a couple came to me, and the husband had been caught cheating, but the party wanted to work out the relationship. And, you know, the wife had a lucrative career that she had put on hold to stay home and help raise the couple's kids. And she was like, you know, here I am putting my career on hold, you're gonna leave me high and dry, but going out, and, you know, cheating with this other woman. And so they wrote up a post nuptial agreement basically said, if you cheat again, if you get caught again, then I'm going to get alimony for, you know, XML for X number of years, and I'm going to get the majority of the assets because, you know, I put my career on hold for this relationship. And for the husband, he really wanted to make the marriage work and to keep her there. And it was worth it to him to basically say, I'm not going to cheat. And in fact, I'm gonna put my money where my mouth is, and I'll sign off on something that says, you're going to get the majority of the assets and, and, you know, a bunch of years of alimony if this happens again. So I've seen a couple try to save their relationship, you know, by, you know, like I said, putting the money where the mouth is in a postnup. You know, another example is just, you know, I had a situation where, you know, a couple had been married for several years, and when they got married, the wife had moved into the husband's house. And so, she was paying him rent of half the mortgage every year, and he was paying the mortgage. But she felt, you know, like, it wasn't so much a fair deal, because with every half of the, you know, kind of rent or mortgage that he paid, he was gaining more money and an asset that was in his name only, and with every month that she paid him rent, that money was going nowhere. She wasn't getting, you know, a stake in the house. And so, they came up with an agreement that basically said, okay, you know, from, you know, from the date of the marriage, you know, if he had, you know, 200 grand equity when they got married, you know, she got to share 5050 Of all the equity that they gained during the course of marriage when she was paying in rent.

Josh Bolton: 39:52

So, it tricky even with a prenup, though,

Aaron T: 39:55

it could get tricky, but what we did is we spelled it out so that, uh, you know, essentially what we locked in for the husband was a percentage ownership in the house, you know. So if the house is worth 500 grand, and say the husband's got 250 grand of equity on the day they get married, then rather than saying he gets 250 grand plus x percent every year, we said 50% of the equity in the house is his no matter how much it's worth. And that way, if the house increases in value to 600,000, we know the first 300 grand to say the house is worth a million. We know the first 500 grand This is an all equity after that is split 5050. But at least we have a formula, rather than a bunch of lawyers in the courtroom with three with competing spreadsheets, you know, trying to argue their case to the judge as to what percentage should be is and what percentage should be hers. So yeah, there's there's always a way to make it easier and clearer than spend money on lawyers and go into court.

Josh Bolton: 40:54

And it sounds like it. I wouldn't say the only thing I'm not thinking about for the percent equity is like what you pay half the rent for X many years. Was it like you get 0.05% of the house every month or something like that?

Aaron T: 41:10

Yeah, well, it's really just deciding what percentage of the house is separate. And what percentage of the house is marital? Yeah. So you don't have to get as granular as determining what percentage you know, per per rental payment. You just know how much are we chopping off on the front end to go to the spouse who, who owned the house before the marriage, and then everything else on top of that is divided? 5050. Okay,

Josh Bolton: 41:35

I was gonna say again, me more brutal. It's like, if I bought the house via your living and rents, I get 75% And heaven forbid the Davao divorce, you are only allowed to 25% of it sounds like I could do that.

Aaron T: 41:47

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's whatever the couple agrees to is going to be fair for them. You know, I also have couples that say, Alright, look, we're getting married, and you're moving into my house. But I'll pay 100% of the mortgage. You don't have to pay any But in exchange, you're not going to own any part of the house, either. We'll just split. We'll just split utilities while we live here. Okay, so that's fair. Yeah, I mean, there are there, there are ways to come up. There's different scenarios that both couples can feel like they're being treated fairly. It's just best to agree to what those terms are on the front end, rather than what I see a lot of the time, which is there's not any communication. one spouse thinks, Well, I guess I own part of the house and the other spouse thinks, nope, this house is mine. That's a recipe for, you know, lawyers in a big legal bill.

Josh Bolton: 42:35

Yeah. That yeah, like you said, minimum 70k. And it's not gonna be fun, either. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So then, what are some other things that we haven't gotten into other than prenup? And the destructuring for a postnup? Like, you were talking about the kids and like the divorce, is it there? I mean, trying to think from a guy on the street point of view, let's say let's say I don't have a wife yet. Or I have a wife but we don't have kids yet. This is that one of those were in the prenup is saying the day we do have kids is the same granular thing is like this happens, this happens to assassins, etc. Or is there something a little different when it comes to kids?

Aaron T: 43:18

Yeah, yeah. Great, great question. I'm glad you asked that. So, you know, the the way that I explain like what is potentially a play in a divorce case, there's four things, there's dividing the assets and debts number one, number two, alimony number three, child custody, and number four child support. Child Custody and child support are completely off limits for Prieto, you cannot free determine what custody is going to be and what child support is going to be. And the reason now, actually, yeah, yeah, the reason for that is, the court is always going to want to have the power to decide what kind of custody arrangement is in the children's best interest at the time of the divorce. Right. So you could get married and think one thing like, oh, yeah, you know, if, if anything ever happens, we'll just, you know, we'll share the kids 5050 will have, you know, completely even parenting plan, you know, and neither for pay the other one child support, and that's how it will be. But at the time that you get divorced, your spouse could have turned into an axe murderer or picked up a crack habit, or, you know, something else. And I'm, you know, I'm giving them

Josh Bolton: 44:29

examples, but it probably has happened before. Right? Right.

Aaron T: 44:33

It has happened before something has happened, that makes that person no longer fit to have custody. I mean, addiction is a big one, you know, like, they become a drunk or they become an addict, and it's no longer safe or in the kids best interest to have custody with that person. So courts have said you can't put anything about custody in a prenuptial agreement and kind of the same thing when it comes to child support because you know who gets child support is going to be depend on who has the kids, right? So you can't predetermine custody or child support in a prenuptial agreement, you always got to leave that to the table. Now, the one thing you can do is what I was talking about previously, where you can require that the parties go and have mediation before they go to court. So you can still protect against having a custody battle in a courtroom, you go require that the couple goes and hires, you know, a custody expert or a child psychologist or, you know, whatever kind of professional that can come in and help the couple decide what's going to be in the best interest of the kids without forcing that couple to have to go bad without in court. So you can't directly you know, address custody and child support. But you're going to least put some tools in the prenup that makes it less likely that you go kind of the worst case scenario route, which is badly and out in a grind.

Josh Bolton: 45:58

So mediation is one you've mentioned at least three times during that what is the what is it? And how is it benefit? And also, side question, how long do I got you for?

Aaron T: 46:08

As long as you want me?

Josh Bolton: 46:09

You sure? All right, cool.

Aaron T: 46:11

Yeah, um, mediation? Another good question. So mediation is essentially a process where you try to settle your case, usually, in one day, in one just marathon session, if that's what it takes, where you are typically in one room, either by yourself or with, you know, a representative, like an attorney, and your spouse's in the other room, and the mediator who's a trained professional, who knows how to get people who have different positions to an agreement in the center. And that mediator goes back and forth between the two sides of the two rooms. You know, these days, we're doing them, you know, we're doing our mediations over zoom. So you're literally in two different zoom rooms, and the mediator bounces back and forth between the rooms. And, you know, a good mediator will play devil's advocate with both sides and say, Well, what about this? What about this, try to figure out what's important to both sides and help them come to an agreement at the end of the day that both parties can live with and sign off on. And that becomes the final order of the court. You submit that to the to the judge, and you never have to show your face in the courtroom. That's interesting. That's yeah.

Josh Bolton: 47:20

So So yeah, okay, so it sounds like a prenup or postnup. It's like, if something comes up, we just we go to mediation. We'll kill it. Now. I'm gonna play devil's advocate, what if mediation doesn't work? And both parties are still arguing just as hard as 8am? And it's now like, 8pm?

Aaron T: 47:37

Yeah. Um, so there's, there's, there's a few, there's a couple different options at that point. You know, sometimes we'll write in the agreement. But if you do one mediation session, and you know, you can't hash out anything that's not already addressed in the prenuptial agreement. So a good prenup is already going to spell out exactly what happens in terms of division of assets and deaths, and alimony so that those two things are off the table. But say you've got custody, and you've got child support, and you can't hash those things out in mediation, you know, one option is to say, okay, you've made your good faith try, you let the case go ahead and proceed on the court. Another option is, you're required to do more than one mediation session or you, you provide a certain number of hours that the parties have to try to negotiate before they get to move on to that next step. And then a third option is arbitration. So I know that's one more definition I got to give there today, and what does it do? Yeah, so arbitration is is essentially like, court, but not in court, if you get so I get that court proceeding is, you'll file your divorce case, in the public record, any individual can go down to the courthouse and download those records or get a copy of those records. Happens all the time. It's the Liberty cases where you you see what one attorney filed and see what the other attorney responded with. You know, it's all happens in the public. If you go to a trial, you know, if your case goes to trial, it's in a public courtroom. And you're kind of stuck in this court proceeding. Where, you know, the judge isn't going to get to your case for a year, year and a half down the line. I mean, that's the real reason why these cases dragged on. So long as the courts are backed up. There's only a limited number of judges, there's only a limited number of spots in the courtroom and waiting for your case to kind of come up and get its turn in front of the judge can take, you know, a year year and a half, you know, longer in COVID days, right. Whereas arbitration, you can kind of pick a private judge. You don't have to file anything in a public courtroom where reporters can go in or you know, snooping neighbors can go in and download, you know, everything that you bought in your case. Your case doesn't happen in a public courtroom. It happens in a private place, maybe like a conference room of a lawyer's office, and you can set up a specific amount of time for so you can say, all right, you know, if one person says, you know, after you go to mediation, it doesn't work out, you don't settle your case, then you move on to arbitration and arbitration has to happen within 30 days of the mediation. So you can put a time limit on how long it lasts, your divorce doesn't last for a year and a half, you can say we only get one day for mediation. So I mean, for arbitration. So you don't run into this thing where like, sometimes a trial in front of a judge can last two days, three days a week. So you limit the length of the arbitration, and then you say, it's going to be binding on both parties. So you don't get, you know, you don't get the chance to kind of run to the courthouse afterwards afterwards. And you kind of select your own judge. So that could be it could be a retired judge, it could be an attorney who is very senior maybe was practicing for 30 years, and you give that person the power that the judge would otherwise have to decide your case. So you have a lot of benefits that come with arbitration, one is completely private, to your limit the length of it, how long the entire case can last. And that also limits the amount that you can spend on it. And three, it's it's binding on both parties, both parties, you get the whole thing done in one day. And that way, you have a case that's over for a limited amount of money in a short period of time. That stays private, all of which you have no guarantee about if you enter the

Josh Bolton: 51:30

court systems. That's interesting. I've Okay, mediation and arbitration, arbitration. Yeah, arbitration. I've never heard of these. This is fascinating. So it was the sounds like arbitration there you if you have enough connection, you could rig it to your advantage, though. Come on down. It's just me thinking like cynically,

Aaron T: 51:52

yeah, yeah, maybe I mean, the idea is, you know, sometimes in these programs will actually say, This is who the arbitrator will be. But most of the time, we put in a clause that protects against exactly what you're saying, one person having connections, or one person being able to pick who this person is. And we'll do this, I'll give you another example. We'll say, All right, you know, one person gets to pick an arbitrator, the second gets to pick an arbitrator, and those two arbitrators pick the third. So that's one way to kind of put the selection of who the deciding person is going to be out of the hands of the parties, or, you know, another variation on that, as we say, one, this person picks, you know, three arbitrators, and the other person, you know, picks the one of those three arbitrators who was going to be, that may not be as arm's length as the first option. But, you know, like I said, there, there's many ways to kind of come up with a way to make sure that one party doesn't get an advantage over the other,

Josh Bolton: 52:54

I would just think you could do like a bingo, just draw a container,

Aaron T: 52:58

or draw names out of a hat we have, I have seen all kinds of stuff where that's, well, you can't pick the person who's going to appraise the house. So the parties literally get to get literally get together and flip a coin. You know, so, you know, there's, there's, you know, we've done enough of these kinds of agreements that we've, you know, we've come up against, you know, the different ways to game the system. And, you know, we kind of try to write the clauses in a way that you know, one party can't get an advantage over the other by kind of these sneaky tools.

Josh Bolton: 53:30

Oh, I just thinking now this just childish humor. Can I write in a prenup? If I die early? Can you? Can you burn me, and then bury me under a tree kind of thing? And they have to do it to get the money?

Aaron T: 53:43

You know, I honestly, probably so because it's still

Josh Bolton: 53:48

funny. I would have to call you later.

Aaron T: 53:50

These these agreements, you are really it's just like a contract. You're really only limited by number one, your creativity. And two, it can't be something that breaks the law. Right? You can't be like, You got to go like, you know, you know, I don't know. You gotta go rob, my neighbor before you can, you know, you gotta go. You gotta go. You gotta run naked across the Golden Gate Bridge, you know, like, probably that far down the line. But, you know, people have put interesting things in prenups before people have been interesting things in wills before and, you know, if it doesn't break the law, you know, I think courts might shrug their shoulders and say they got no choice but to enforce it. So, you know, it's all about what the parties can agree to

Josh Bolton: 54:30

do funny. I used to joke with one of my high school buddies, cuz he's like, you know, if you die if you have a funny feeling gonna force everyone to get drunk. I'm like, except anyone underage? Right? Right. If they are then she's like, Yeah, you would be the one where no one can be sad cuz they're too drunk to care. Hey, funny to put that in like a will or a prenup. It's like, if this happens, I want this.

Aaron T: 54:51

That's like that sounds like it. That's a good movie plot.

Josh Bolton: 54:54

Right? Oh, that's too funny. So Then what are some of the, like, personal questions like, what are some of the craziest case without giving your clients information way that you've gone through situationally?

Aaron T: 55:13

Yeah. You know, some of the craziest, you know, cases that I've gone through, are probably actually good arguments for, you know, a prenup. I mean, you would be shocked or maybe wouldn't be I don't know, about some of the things that people do in relationships or, you know, in cases. You know, I've had cases where, you know, we find out that the other spouse has, you know, a second wife or a second husband, you know, oh, and they're living a complete double life, you know, stretched out between, you know, two spouses.

Josh Bolton: 55:58

As some determination, though.

Aaron T: 56:00

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine it myself. You know, sorry, to my wife in advance, but one is enough, you know, for me, I can't imagine. Not with to, you know, I've seen, you know, situations where, you know, people have, you know, hidden bank accounts, hidden financial life. You know, I, I'm a big believer that, you know, financial infidelity is just as common as, like sexual infidelity, where people are, you know, hiding money hiding debts, you know, that kind of thing from their spouse. I've had a case where, you know, a spouse, you know, cashed out all of the family's retirement, you know, to invest it all in, you know, a can't lose penny stock, you know, and Ross leaves, you know, financial, retirement, you know, in the stock market without the other spouses, you know, knowledge. I've had, you know, spouses make up, you know, allegations of, you know, sexual assault or sexual molestation, to try to get the other spouse locked up and be able to walk away with all the assets. I mean, it is it is absolutely insane. You know, what happens to couples who, you know, at one point in time, you know, this was the person that they love more than anybody else in the world, you know, that they got up and profess their love with and want to spend the rest of their lives with and you know, that that phrase that's a thin line between love and hate, has never proven more true than, you know, what you see people go through, you know, in divorce cases, I mean, everyone, everyone knows a couple that is split up, or has gotten divorced where you know, they are they're bitter life enemies afterwards when

Josh Bolton: 57:57

Oh, yeah, it's almost more combat like, that was my martial arts instructor. He's gone through three divorces. And I've actually asked him why Why don't you get a prenup after like, the second one. He's not worth it. I'm like, now it sounds like he should admit.

Aaron T: 58:10

Yeah, give him my phone number. Because I will. Yeah, it's right

Josh Bolton: 58:13

on the fourth wife. So the fifth one will give you a call.

Aaron T: 58:16

There we go. There we go. Yeah. Not too late for posting up, though. Yeah, there we go. There we go. But But yeah, um, you know, it's, it's, you know, I saw some kind of statistic where, you know, like, you know, 96% of couples that get married, think that they're going to stay together forever. Which, of course, begs the question, what, what were the other petitioners? And, yeah, or what were the other 4% thinking? I mean, they're, they're already you know, getting married, they're planning on split up. But, you know, you know, this, just say that, you know, unfortunately, a lot of people think it's 50% it's not, it's between 40 and 45%. But that's a huge amount. That's a huge amount. That, you know, on the day that they got married, they were 100% certain that they were going to stay together forever. And, like you said, you know, what is forever forever is is a hell of a long time. And so,

Josh Bolton: 59:16

I would say it's not measurable because there is no end point. It's like a lifetime, that's measurable, roughly 85 years. So it's like, even corps like, okay, they were thinking 80 years, but only hit like 10

Aaron T: 59:29

Yeah, it's you know, and you just think about, you know, I mean for myself, I think about you know, how different Am I from what I was like 10 years ago, or 1520 years ago, you know, and trying to think you know, what am I going to be like 1520 years in the future. We have no clue. You know, we grow and changes people, your spouse is a human being, they grow change, you know, over time, and, you know, it is certainly not unusual for people to grow apart and we all No, you know, the couple who, you know, they were sweethearts in high school, and, you know, they they went on and one went in one direction and the other one in the other direction. And, you know, by age 30, they couldn't be more different human beings. And so, you know, I think, you know, part of what I've learned through the work that I've done is, you know, we can't predict what the future is going to look like, we can't predict what we're going to look like what the other person is going to look like, what the relationship is going to look like. And so, you know, you know, you don't have to, you know, count on, you know, you don't have to, like, plan out your entire divorce, but it certainly doesn't have help, you know, hurt to have a little insurance, you know, in case the worst case scenario, just like I said, you know, you get car insurance, you're not planning on going out and have a car accident. In fact, you're going to do everything not to use that, to avoid it. You don't want to have to use your car insurance. Hopefully you get it, you know, you get the policy, you save it to your computer, and you never look at it again. But if you want to have it, it can save you from a whole lot of stress and financial ruin. Oh, yeah. The same way that you know, having a prenup, I hope that my clients get it, they sign off on it, they put a copy of it in a drawer, and they never have to ever pull it out again. And hopefully it just gives them some clarity in terms of how they move forward in their financial relationship and their emotional relationship. But if you need it, you know, no one's ever argue with me when I say a messy divorce is best avoided at all costs.

Josh Bolton: 2:01:34

Oh, it is. Some say it sounds like with the prenup and know everything you're saying like let's just say hypothetically 10 years I'm married have kids, the really the only if structure right with you. The only hiccup would be the kids and how much whoever partner has to pay about as an as should be a relatively clean case. Hypothetically.

Aaron T: 2:01:55

Yeah, yeah. It should be a clean case. I mean, the the the agreements that I draft basically say in them, you can attach this to whatever you file with the court and this will serve as your a settlement agreement, at least as it pertains to, you know, dividing any assets, debts and the question of alimony.

Josh Bolton: 2:02:12

That's interesting. I see like, I've always heard of it, but like the stereotypical we were talking earlier, it should for rich people. So the the blonde bimbo doesn't get the poor old man and he's like Viagra just a raw bad money kind of thing. It's yeah, I'd never thought of it that way. Then. Yeah, the average show should. What? Okay. I know each case is different. What's the average costs for one, let's say just a couple sent here like, oh, we should we should both go get like a postnup kind of thing?

Aaron T: 2:02:39

Yeah, no. So my office does prenup prenuptial and postnuptial agreements for a flat fee of 2500.

Josh Bolton: 2:02:48

Okay, that's actually not bad at all. Yeah, yeah.

Aaron T: 2:02:51

I mean, in most, no, we haven't written in that, that gets you, you know, a certain amount of time with your attorney a certain number of revisions. So for the extremely complex ones, you know, if you're, you know, for the people who come in, and they're multimillionaires, and you know, there's a ton of, you know, a team of financial advisors then negotiating on each side, it may go above that, but 90% of the prenups and post ups that we draft are done for that flat fee amount. So it's not at all especially don't have to be a millionaire for it to be worth it. Yeah,

Josh Bolton: 2:03:21

say 2500. Let like put not even like 250 a month aside, and you got to in a year. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, sort

Aaron T: 2:03:32

of what people spend on, you know, a wedding, for example, on average. So, you know, if you kind of counted into like the pre getting married package of the cost, it's just another kind of, you know, cost of doing business and, you know, the average divorce case in the United States cost about 15,000. So, it's a fraction of the cost of the divorce case. And that's not even like, that's the average that's not like the bad messy ones. You know, the bad messy ones get into the six figures. And so, you know, you don't have to be a multimillionaire for you know, a prenup to be worth it. And if they you know, in an ideal case, if it gives you some clarity on the front end and helps you avoid you know, a lot of those arguments that couples have during their marriage you know, it's well worth it.

Josh Bolton: 2:04:25

So now I'm just curious since I got your you specialize in family, but if I gave you a call right now and say can you draw me up a will? Could you do that too?

Aaron T: 2:04:33

I know I refer those out. Okay, just curious. So what I know best Yeah, exactly.

Josh Bolton: 2:04:39

I was just when I was sitting here my cool man is maybe a one stop shop and get a will get

Aaron T: 2:04:44

my get my prenup or at least I get sent to the side for when I meet that special someone. Yeah.

Josh Bolton: 2:04:50

Yeah. Anybody got anything else? You know? That was I'll take two. Hey. All right. Aaron. I love this has been awesome. Definitely would love to get you on in the future. I got it. Three questions for you. Yes. So other than work, what have you been doing to keep yourself busy during these lockdown times?

Aaron T: 2:05:07

Um, I have got a, I got myself a nice Taylor guitar. And so that is, you know, that is keeping me busy and giving me something to do during these crazy times.

Josh Bolton: 2:05:19

That's a good guitar. I'm not I was trying to learn guitar. And it was one of those I looked at him like, it's so expensive, but it's so good.

Aaron T: 2:05:28

It's so nice. Yeah.

Josh Bolton: 2:05:31

So So when aspiring to be like you, successful lawyer, businessman married, what are some tips, tricks or advice you give him to start on the path that you're down?

Aaron T: 2:05:42

Um, you know, I tell you, you know, one thing that has always served me well in life is to, you know, treat everything as an experiment. You know, I think a lot of times people think like, oh, if I go down this path, like, I can never switch gears, I can never do anything different. You know, most of the decisions that we make in our lives are not irreversible decisions. And so, you know, one thing that's helped me has been, you know, just to try different stuff, you know, I didn't dream about being, you know, a divorce lawyer when I was 12 years old, you know, to kind of, you know, stumbled into it by, you know, having it be something that I tried and, and I found, you know, a niche that that works for me, and, you know, has given me a good career. So, I guess, you know, just to sum it up with the short version would be try stuff,

Josh Bolton: 2:06:27

you know, there we go. Don't be afraid to try. Um, then the third one, where can everyone contact you, they're like sitting here itching. You've mentioned a few times a word like some social media websites, etc, etc. People can just be like, Aaron, we need your help now.

Aaron T: 2:06:41

Yeah, the best place to go. And the easiest place to tell people to find me is, is www.prenups.com. prenups is just like how it sounds PR, E and ups.com. And from there, you can link out to our social media or YouTube page, we've got a bunch of information on the website, like I talked about earlier, we got the free the ebook, seven financial strategies for a rock solid marriage, and it works for any relationship as well. So you don't have to be married to to benefit from you know, some of the strategies you talked about on the website.

Josh Bolton: 2:07:17

That's awesome. Thank you, Aaron. This has been an absolute honor and a pleasure just to chat with you and he just pick your brain.

Aaron T: 2:07:24

Awesome. Thanks for having me on.

Josh Bolton: 2:07:25

Just it's an absolute pleasure.