Summer is a great time for weddings. School is out, the weather is great, and it stays light until late.
If you have a wedding coming up, or you have a son or daughter that does, you have no doubt spent a large amount of time planning everything. The one thing that you may not have had time for yet is an education on what a marriage does to a couple from a legal perspective.
Once the couple is wed, a community estate is created that did not exist just a few seconds earlier. The couple has legal obligations to each other that they did not have just a few seconds earlier. And the bride and groom are tied to each other in ways that they may have never contemplated.
If this is not a first marriage for one or both of the parties, there can be the added complexity of having gone from a separate estate to a community estate, back to a separate estate, and now creating a new community estate.
If there are children already in the picture, the rights and duties of the parties can be drastically altered by the new marriage. If not, or if some come along in the future, it’s good to know in advance how all of that works legally.
Regardless of the situation, beginning a marriage is beginning a new life. Knowing the law is like knowing the Rules on the Box Top of Life; learning some Family Law can give you some knowledge of the Rules on the Box Top of Marriage.
If you or a close family member are about to begin a new life, now may be a good time to make a small investment in some time with a Family Law Attorney to find out how things will change as soon as the second “I do” is spoken.
To speak with an attorney at the Beal Law Firm, please call us at 1-800-811-0380 or write to us at lawyers@bealfirm.com. We would be happy to sit down with you and answer all of your questions.