Denver bankruptcy attorneys understand that no one plans on getting a divorce. 
However, given that about half of all marriages end in divorce, having serious, ongoing discussions about finances may help you head off fighting in the future – and possibly a Denver bankruptcy.
U.S. News recently explored this issue in a fair amount of depth, outlining a number of mistakes that newlywed or newly-co-habitating spouses make. Our Denver bankruptcy attorneys believe they’re worth taking a closer look here.
The first deals with combining your accounts too early. A lot of people may see this as a symbolic or romantic gesture. The truth of the matter, however, is that if you break up, it can cause major headaches – particularly if you aren’t actually married.
For example, you can lose joint investments if only your spouse’s name is on the title. Your money or time that went into a kitchen or bathroom – forget about getting that back. And even if you have a joint account, that money may go to whoever made the first withdrawal. That could leave you in a very precarious financial situation.
This leads to the next issue, which is sharing your credit cards, mortgage or other debt. A big step in a relationship can be buying a house. But even if one party was responsible for coming up with the down payment, if the other person’s name is on the title, they own it too. A discussion needs to be had about what will happen to that property in the event of a split. It’s not very romantic of course, but it’s important to at least have the discussion while you’re on good terms. Hopefully, that’s all it will ever be: a discussion.
And finally, one mistake you definitely don’t want to make is putting one person in charge of all the money. Sometimes, couples think it makes sense because one person is often just better at handling finances than another. But first of all, that puts one spouse in the position of having to ask some form of permission before buying something. That’s not healthy for the relationship. But secondly, that keeps one half of the couple potentially in the dark about any potential problems. In those cases, you may not find out about a major financial problem until a mountain of penalties and fees have been accrued.
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