Love and Panic Chickens in the Time of Pandemics

Are you experiencing pandemic mood swings? Are you hoarding toilet paper? Or animal proteins? Have you become a prepper? Do you now own panic chickens? Have you thrown caution to the wind and elected to party in Daytona Beach? We advise against that course of action. Or are you, like some of our clients, considering love, marriage and a baby carriage? If so, we advise that you move forward cautiously.

Lucky for you the courts are still open and magistrates are still marrying people. In Durham County, you can get married by the civil magistrate with a Durham County marriage license from 10-4 Monday through Friday in the courthouse. If it’s the weekend, you can get married on Saturday afternoon by a criminal magistrate at the Durham County jail. No appointments necessary. Durham County magistrates are only marrying people with Durham County marriage licenses. Each county’s procedure is different for getting hitched but some things about marriage remain the same.

Primarily, marriage continues to be an economic arrangement. Once married many economic rules apply to you. And if you are like many other people you don’t know most of these rules and you won’t until your relationship is ending. Generally, everything you acquire from date of marriage to date of separation (whether an asset or a debt, in either or both parties’ names) is presumed to be marital and may be divided between the parties, typically equally, unless you have an agreement stating otherwise or, absent an agreement, the judge decides that marital property should not be divided equally. There are, of course, many caveats and some exceptions to the rules (the law being what it is).

However, you can control how and if these economic rules apply to you by having a prenup or a postnup otherwise known as a premarital agreement, prenuptial agreement, post marital or postnuptial agreement. If you don’t have a prenuptial agreement or postnuptial agreement, the panic chickens are shared equally as well as the debt for any pandemic hoarding your spouse has engaged in. Hopefully, you have an even number of chickens or things could get messy. Our lawyers are here to help you draft your premarital agreements. Give us a call at 919-883-4900 to make an appointment for a consultation.