Getting Married? It’s Time To Plan For Retirement

There are several milestones in a person’s life, and for many people ones of those milestones is getting married. Possibly several years beyond that is retirement as a married couple, and that time takes special planning.

• How are you using your retirement accounts?
  • Employer‐sponsored retirement accounts, including IRAs and 401(k)s, can be orchestrated to work together for many married couples, even if one spouse is not employed or has a job that does not have a retirement account.
• Are you protecting your property?
  • Many states have the legal principles of community property or as tenants in the entireties. Neither party can sell jointly owned property without the permission of the other spouse, and in the case of litigation, it protects the other spouse’s interest in the property.
• Do you need a prenuptial agreement?
  • Second marriages have a stronger need for prenuptial agreements, as both parties may come into the marriage with an abundance of their own assets as well as their own children.
• Retirement planning in the case of death or divorce.
  • The surviving spouse is able to claim the higher Social Security benefit, whether his or her own or not. Upon the death of one spouse, the other will inherit the IRAs and 401(k) as a spousal beneficiary.
• The Overall Lesson.
  • Do not got broke planning for the giant party of a wedding, and focus on the planning of the marriage.

See Eric Brotman, Getting Married? It’s Time To Plan For Retirement, Forbes, March 26, 2019.

Special thanks to Joel C. Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.