EP #7 | The Heart and Hard Truths of Family Law with Attorney Andreas Mittry

Transcription

Andreas Mittry: Said, Hey, I’m busy. Need some help. And I went to work with him and so got my feet wet in this family law stuff and discovered I just kind of had a knack for it. I’ve always loved working with kids and families. I just thought it just kind of fit my personality.

Much better

Chris Hall: Hello. This is Chris Hall with the Reading Financial Advisors podcast. And today, I have a special guest with me. Andreas Mittry is a local attorney here in town. Him and I have known each other for quite some time, and he is a phenomenal resource for me when I have questions about people with family law or, you know, people who are going through divorce, etcetera.

And so I thought he might be a really valuable addition to the show. We could talk a little bit more about, like, you know, the ins and outs of things like that, and, you know, pick his brain a little. So, without further ado, let me introduce you to Andreas Mitri. Andreas, thank you so much for being here, sir.

Andreas Mittry: Well, thank you for having me on your podcast. This is an interesting opportunity for me as we’re discussing earlier. I haven’t done one of these before, so, it’s kind of interesting, and I’m looking forward to this.

Chris Hall: Glad to have you. So, tell me a little bit about, your background, like where you’re from, where you went to school, etcetera.

Andreas Mittry: I grew up here in the Shasta County area. I like to joke around that I’ve lived in every other house in Shasta County, And that’s part of the reason, I think I’ve lived in the same house for the last twenty years because when I settled down, I was like, I’m I’m not doing that, what I did as a child and and moved around a lot. So, I spent some time in Anderson, Palisade Row, finished up high school at Shasta High School, and attended Shasta College for a little bit. So, yeah, I’m definitely a local guy.

Chris Hall: Nice. And then, so I also did Shasta High School and Shasta College as well. Where did you go on to get your degree?

Andreas Mittry: I finished up my undergrad at Sacramento state university and, with a degree in philosophy. And as one might expect, there’s not a lot of career opportunities with, undergrad and just a philosophy major, you got to move on to something else. And I chose to use it as a pre law degree. And from there went to Empire Law School in Santa Rosa. That’s where I got my law degree and, took the bar when I was in Santa Rosa.

Chris Hall: Now, how hard is it to, pass the bar? I’ve heard so many, like, stories about it just taking time after time and it’s just not as, you know, easy as one would think for sure. Like, how was it for you?

Andreas Mittry: Well, it’s three full days of exam, and the amount of, I think, that’s put on you is quite a bit. Just because you have so much riding on it, you’ve you’ve put your three or four years into law school already. I was doing night school, so I spread it out over four years because I was working and had a family at the time. And so you just have so much riding on it. I think that’s probably the toughest part about it.

The materials, I mean, they’re difficult concepts and whatnot, but they’re that is not the most difficult part to overcome. I think it’s just the overriding pressure that your whole career, your whole four years that you’ve spent in law school, your last six months that you’ve been studying for bar prep is all riding on these three days. And then on top to boot, you don’t get your results for, like, another four and a half, five months. So you gotta wait around to see whether or not you you you passed. So, the the bar is offered in July and February, and I took the July bar and you don’t get your results until right before Thanksgiving.

And all I could think of is everybody I see when I go home for Thanksgiving holidays, everybody’s, the first question is going to be, you know, did you pass the bar? And I was nervous because I was thinking, man, what am I going to have to tell everybody if I didn’t pass them? So,

Chris Hall: if you don’t, if you were not

Andreas Mittry: better next time, but I was very fortunate to to, to pass on my first, take of the bar exam. Not have to go back or not come up with some story of, how the dog ate my bar prep work or something before I got to take the bar. And that’s why I didn’t pass.

Chris Hall: Well, if for some reason if for some reason you didn’t pass, like, that’s that you said you had to wait four to five months to get the information, and then you would have to spend, like, another four to five months prepping again. So, I mean, that would be like a year of your life.

Andreas Mittry: Yeah. You would you would I mean, you would have the option, I guess, to sign up again and go in February, but you would probably wanna take another bar prep course again and do it all over again. I’ll be darned. It was it was challenging.

Chris Hall: Sorry. Yes. So what was your so so what what what is your like, you you had mentioned, you know, family law. What how long did you get in how long ago did you get into family law specifically, or did you try a couple different things? Or do you do you I you said some work with laundry.

You also work on that too?

Andreas Mittry: Mhmm. My my law career started when I moved back to to Reading. I I took a job with a at the time it was the largest firm in the area. It was Moss and Enochian, and their focus was, insurance defense work. So that’s where I started off.

And insurance defense work is kind of the anti personal injury side of things where when somebody files a claim for some type of injury against a person who’s insured, they go out and hire attorneys to defend the the person with the insurance. So I did that. It’s it’s a field that gave me great experience for the personal injury side of of litigation because, like I said, it’s the opposite side of the coin of personal injury work, And you get to know how insurance companies evaluate cases. You get to see how insurance defense attorneys defend cases. So you know the ins and outs of personal injury claims and what they’re looking for and what they’re going to try and use against your personal injury clients and what motivates them to maximize claims.

So it was a great experience. I’m glad I got out of that work, to be honest with you. It’s not always the most rewarding type of attorney work, but, it gave me a lot of skills, and a lot of background that I still use to this date to try and help my clients in the personal injury realm. And it gave you a lot of great experience with, you know, working with courts and the evidence side of things that sometimes family law attorneys, they’re just not as well versed in the evidence code and whatnot. I think you find that people with a civil background tend to have a little bit better grasp of of that side of the law.

Chris Hall: Yeah. No. I I mean, it’s like literally, like, just hanging out in their camp, learning from them. That’s pretty cool stuff.

Andreas Mittry: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a great way of putting it. I’ve I’ve I’ve seen the other side. I I I know how they operate.

Chris Hall: So with regards to family law, obviously, that’s what I, you you know, utilize your resources the most for. How long have you been doing that for, and what kind of, like, you know, pushed you down that path?

Andreas Mittry: I’ve been doing family law, I would say, since about 02/2010, so about fourteen years now. What what happened with the insurance defense business as far as, attorneys here in this area is the insurance defense industry kind of changed their model. They’ve decided that these big insurance companies would just have they would hire their own insurance attorneys in Sacramento or their own firm that they would use exclusively. So instead of hiring local counsel for these things, a case that was filed in Shasta County. Now they’re hiring, they have their own attorneys out of Sacramento or San Francisco.

So it was kind of like, Hey, that field is drying up. And one of the attorneys I worked with decided he was gonna expand his practice into family law, realizing the writing was on the wall, that this insurance defense stuff is drying up. And I went to work with him. He said, hey, I’m busy. I need some help.

And I went to work with him and so got my feet wet in this family law stuff and discovered I just kinda had a knack for it. I’ve always loved working with kids and families. I just thought it just kind of fit my personality. I’m much better suited for it than I was Yeah. Insurance defense type work, and it it just fit me well.

To this day, I I still think custody issues are are something that while always begging at the heartstrings, it’s just something I tend to like helping families or parents, you know, at the appropriate time with their kids.

Chris Hall: Right. No. I could see how that would be incredibly fulfilling. You know what I mean? Because kids need their parents, and this stuff can get contentious.

And, you know, I feel like, you know, me and my ex, you know, we were pretty amenable. Like, you know, it was all really good, and we both realized the value that each one of us had in our kids’ lives. But I see it. I mean, I see people who are like, you know, you’re never gonna see these kids again, and and it’s like, that’s just such a terrible thing. So the fact that you’re helping people get away from that is amazing.

Andreas Mittry: Oh, yes. Highly recommend if you can do it to avoid the litigation over custody, but it’s just not always the Right.

Chris Hall: Right. So with regards to, you know, financials and things like that, you know, obviously, you know, we’ll get into, in my opinion, like, one of the important tools is, like, like, a prenuptial or agreement or something like that. I definitely wanna get into the ins and outs of that. But but let’s face it, most people don’t have one of those. So is there something, like, kind of that people can do to protect themselves in a marriage that would, you know, kind of, like, you know, protect them from losing a bunch of their estate if they do get divorced?

Or is there such thing as a postnuptial agreement? I don’t know these things, that’s what I’m just asking.

Andreas Mittry: Yeah. Obviously, as you mentioned, there are prenuptial agreements and there are postnuptial agreements. There are some limitations to your postnuptial agreement, some things that you can’t do with a postnuptial that you can do with a prenuptial. But, for the most part, California considers married spouses to adults that can decide what they want to do with their property. So postnuptial, you can still come to an agreement as to this is our property, and this is how we wanna deal with it.

The the one big difference between a postnuptial and a prenuptial is with a postnuptial, they won’t let you determine or set aside any obligations as far as spousal support. So you can’t go into, after the fact, hey, by the way, let’s make this agreement to where if we split up, I I don’t have to pay you any spousal support, which is something you can do with a prenuptial to a certain extent. There are a lot of rules and whatnot about it, and there’s some very specific requirements as to what you have to do. One of them being both parties have to be represented by counsel at some point if you’re going to do that, which is I wouldn’t call it a trap, but many people who just pull something offline don’t realize that.

Chris Hall: Got it. Yeah. Yeah. I would imagine that when it comes to, you know, prenuptials, postnuptials, even divorce, I would think that the Internet’s probably not the best source of information for, you know, specific situations, especially California. We’re such a litigious society.

I’m sure there’s so much case law sitting around for us.

Andreas Mittry: Yeah. Well, there there’s a lot of case law, and then there’s a lot of statutes regarding, these, prenuptial agreements. And if you’re not very careful, you run afoul of the the rules that they’ve set in there, which I think were intended to be, you know, protections so somebody doesn’t get caught, you know, being taken advantage of. But even if people are going into it eyes wide open and knowing what they’re doing, and you can get flubbed up with one of these technicalities and what you thought you had is not what’s going to be enforced by the court.

Chris Hall: Yeah. I know that from, you know, doing what I do for as long as I’ve done it, you know, one of the things they talk about that’s devastating to a financial plan, in other words, the way you take up a strategy, is divorce. I know that, you know, personally, you know, when it was me and my ex, you know, I was really, in my opinion, you know, generous. Gave with both hands. It definitely, you know, hamstrung, you know, what I had going on at that point, but it was more important to me that my kid’s mom, you know, were was taken care of and that they didn’t have to worry about her living in an apartment somewhere or something like that.

What percentage of couples when they do divorce are pretty amenable as opposed to like, no, we’re gonna we’re gonna fight this out. And then the rules and then I’ll follow-up with, like, sort of like the dis disposition part.

Andreas Mittry: Well, it’s difficult to say. I mean, usually by the time they come to see an attorney, usually there’s something that’s causing them to say, Hey, we’re not seeing eye to eye on at least some aspect of it. Although people come in quite frequently and say, Hey, I want this to be amicable and, you know, I want this to be smooth. And I believe everybody wants it to be amicable and wants it to be smooth. For the most part, there are people out there who are scorned and want to inflict pain, but I think those are the exception.

The difficult part is people have very different ideas as to what is fair. I, I, I hear quite frequently, I just want to be fair. I just, you know, I want this to be amicable. But sometimes that person’s perception of what is fair and what the other spouse belief is what is fair are pretty far apart. Ideally, if they both have attorneys, the attorneys will tell them, this is where you’re going to end up at the end of the day.

Chris Hall: So

Andreas Mittry: let’s get there now as opposed to fighting over something that’s unrealistic. If one of the spouses has an unrealistic expectation of what they want at the end of the day, whether it be, you know, property division or an amount of support or an amount of time with the children, if they have a very unrealistic expectation of where they want to be. And as counsel, I mean, we are counselors. We’re supposed to counsel these people about what the law is and how it’s gonna impact their case. And if you have an appropriate attorney, sometimes the most important thing they can tell you is no, this is a bad plan or a bad strategy, or what you’re expecting out of this is unrealistic to be a yes person all the time.

You’re not doing your clients any favors.

Chris Hall: Yeah. Yeah. No. That’s really good. I I really don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody say that before though, but there’s a reason why they call you a counselor.

That’s a really good one. I like that. It’s a good take home message there.

Andreas Mittry: Yeah. Yeah. So if your

Chris Hall: if your attorney’s not counseling you and he’s just, you know, letting you do whatever, then you’re probably with the wrong guy or girl.

Andreas Mittry: I can’t take credit for it, and I don’t remember the attorney that said it, but it was, I believe, at a a bench bar luncheon or something. He says, hey. We get paid to give advice. It’s up to you whether it’s up to the client whether or not they wanna take it.

Chris Hall: That’s so true. That’s the same for me, though. That’s exactly it for me. Absolutely. You know, I tell you know, I basically say, hey.

In my opinion, this is what I wanna do, but you don’t have to take it. And and, you know, I mean, for the most part, you know, people have come to you because you’re an expert. People come to me because I’m an expert, and they usually take our advice. But sure enough, there’s always a few people that, you know, wanna fight you on every little thing, and and that’s that’s kinda fun too, I guess. You know?

Just like people are different. So what are gonna do?

Andreas Mittry: Absolutely. And yeah. I mean, you would hope they respect you, as a professional, as somebody that has experience in in that field. But, so frequently I hear the well, you know, my friend at the gym told me that I I should be getting this. And I’m like, well, I guess you could have your friend at the gym advise you.

They probably gave you this advice for free. So I’m not sure why

Chris Hall: you’re giving advice. What is what is the court’s definition these days of reasonable? I’m assuming it it it’s weighted by how long someone’s been together, but what’s what’s the general definition? Is it still like, let’s put the assets down the middle, let’s take income and divide that down the middle and try to figure out, you know, who needs to be supplemented? Like, what’s the is there general rules at all in there?

Andreas Mittry: Oh, well, I think the you gotta look at it as family law is kind of three separate departments. You you have custody and visitation with regards to the kids, And that overriding theme there is always going to be what’s in the best interest of the children. So that’s the overriding theme that California says is supposed to dictate, you know, what your custody and visitation plan for the children is going to be. Of course, that’s pretty wide open to interpretation in every case, so there’s a lot of leeway a family law judge has in deciding what’s in the best interest of the children. There is another factor that says both parents are to have substantial quality and meaningful relationships with their children, that that’s, another aspect that the court is supposed to be implementing, but it’s still with the backdrop of what’s in the best interest of the children.

So you have that custody and visitation if there’s minor children. Then you have property. That’s the assets that you acquired during the marriage with income earned during the marriage, I believe, is one of the best ways of putting that. And that is supposed to be divided equally, the assets and debts. It doesn’t have to be in kind, meaning not every single asset has to be divided itself.

For instance, one spouse can take the family home and the other spouse maybe takes a retirement asset. Right. But at the end of the day, they’re supposed to balance out. Right. Or maybe once Faust takes the home and takes, you know, a bunch of debt along with it, like, you know, credit card debt and says, hey, that kinda washes out any any equity you would have had in the house because I’m taking this additional debt along with this asset.

So Yeah. That’s the part of dividing things equally. That’s the part where you’re we’re a common law state and what’s earned during the marriage is both of ours. It doesn’t matter whose name was on a particular paycheck or whose name is on a particular retirement account or even if you took purchased a vehicle or something in your own name, if you purchased it during the marriage, it’s presumed to be community property. And then the third aspect that we talked about is, we haven’t talked about yet is support.

Now support is going to be based upon generally 99, 90 five percent of that is going to be driven by current incomes or assets income producing assets. So your what you have coming in as as

Chris Hall: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So now just like a hypothetical. So you had mentioned credit card debt.

And so if two people are married and they have credit card debt. Right? And so let’s say one let’s say they have each have their own individual credit cards, and one’s got 20,000 on, the other one’s got 20,000 on it. Like, those would be even, so they’d probably just split them and keep them. But, like, what if one spouse has, like, 25,000 and the other spouse has, like, 5,000?

That that would be a factor where they’d say, hey. Listen. We’re gonna have you accrue some of this debt. Or the other person would say, no. I’ve got 25 in debt, so I need a little bit more in assets to offset that.

Andreas Mittry: Generally speaking, that that credit card debt incurred during the marriage is a community debt, just like an asset acquired during the marriage is a community asset. So it it doesn’t really matter that the credit card was in one spouse’s name alone if the if it was money spent during the marriage. Generally speaking, with very few exceptions, like if you secretly ran up gambling debts or something like that that was not in any way for the benefit of the marriage. Or maybe it was towards the end of the marriage and you you took you know, you had a, an affair and you, and you use that credit card to, to finance that. Are like limited situations where you could say, hey, I shouldn’t be responsible for that.

That wasn’t in any way for the benefit of the community. But if it was a, eating out and, you know, we went on trips and and whatnot, and it was racked up on a credit card. Even if the other person didn’t know about it at the time, it’s a community debt or didn’t have any, understanding of how much debt the other person was racking up.

Chris Hall: Yeah. So I I think it’s a good part to segue into, you know, for for what I you know, I’m actually pretty passionate about prenuptial agreements. Mostly because like the people that I deal with, if they are single, they typically have, they’re seeing me because they’ve at some point gathered substantial assets, and so they come to me single with substantial assets, and then they find somebody that they fall in love with. And you know, my job as financial advisor is not only to protect them from losses in the market, but from losses in their potential, you know, decisions. And so I’m a huge advocate for it.

It doesn’t seem like it really is very common. Like it seems like a lot of people feel very strongly that like it’s like if you love somebody, you wouldn’t get a prenuptial. And and so one of the things I try to do in my practice is I am educating people to tell them, hey, by the way, you already have a prenup. But it’s a it’s a blank check and you’re allowing the government, the court system to decide who what’s fair. Like, yeah, we can both agree that what’s fair, but you do have a prenup.

Like, make no mistake about it. It’s a judge and a couple of lawyers, you know, like yourself that are really going to determine. And so I’ve been trying to get that message out, you know, because I feel like two people who are in love with each other should go into contract just the same way you two business partners would be, the same way that, an NFL running back is gonna sign an agreement. There’s contracts because we all expect it to work out. Right?

But the reason we have contracts is because it doesn’t always work out. I don’t know that if the data’s correct, but my understanding is it’s, you know, that we’re up to, like like seventy percent divorce rates or something like that now.

Andreas Mittry: That is not my understanding that it’s never been that high. I believe my understanding it is the 50%, but,

Chris Hall: Closer to 50. Okay.

Andreas Mittry: Yeah. I could think then I have not researched that issue. And you had asked earlier, like you said, what percentage of people have an amicable divorce? I don’t know if there’s any stats out there on But with regards to prenups, I I actually think the way you put it is very eloquent and very accurate. If if you don’t Thank you.

Draft your own yeah. Then you’re going to use the government’s default. Essentially they, they, yeah, they’ve, they’ve got an agreement that you’re going to use like it or not, if you don’t have your own in place. So why not pick one that you know the terms of, because most people when they’re getting married, don’t really have a good understanding of exactly what’s going to happen if it doesn’t work out. And just naturally when you’re dealing with marriage, you’re dealing with something that’s very emotional, And nobody wants to go into their marriage with one of the major thoughts being is, well, what happens if it doesn’t work out?

Because obviously they’re not doing it with the intention of, this may not work out. You’re thinking, oh, this is my partner for life. This is we’re soulmates. Then I can’t imagine, you know, ever being apart from this person, but obviously many times, unfortunately it doesn’t work out. Right.

I like the idea of why use the government’s default plan for how you’re gonna divide your assets up when you can come up with your own.

Chris Hall: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, a big part of it is is that, you know, like, you know, you’re anti love or you’re anti relationship or you’re planning your exit before you start your entrance. There’s always these, you know, caveats to it, you know, which all, again, I think we have as a society have kind of, like, proliferated that. But, like, if we as a society could turn right around and say, hey, you know, we’re going to be, you know, proactive, and we are going to make sure that each one of us is taking care of the other person the way that they should be taken care of instead of instead of, like you know what I mean?

Instead of just kind of hoping that it’ll get taken care of correctly. So and then you and I had talked just a couple weeks ago. I had a client who was significantly in debt, and they were gonna get married. And one of the things I was like, hey. Hold on a second.

Like, that debt’s gonna go to the new person. You know? Is that correct? Typically without a prenuptial?

Andreas Mittry: No. They they don’t the the debt is owed by the person who owes it, but what are they gonna use to service that debt while they’re married? They’re gonna be using most likely income from the marriage, which is community property. So now you’re using your community property to service what this person’s debt was before marriage, which is their separate property debt. Now, then you get into some, if you do separate later, then there’s some things, special rules depending on what kind of debt it is as to whether or not, you know, your the community’s entitled to some reimbursement because we spent this much money servicing your your separate property debt.

Now that we’re splitting up, I want, you know, to be reimbursed because we’re no longer together, but you end up with all kinds of issues there. Is there anything to reimburse with? Did you keep track of how much you actually, you know, how much community property went towards that debt? And I think you just got a person would probably be very wise if you’re going be married to somebody with significant debt. You’d be wise maybe to have a prenup of some sort or question, do you really wanna be financially tied to somebody who’s in this kind of debt?

Chris Hall: Right.

Andreas Mittry: Is that what you’re

Chris Hall: What are I mean, so because because, like, we’re talking about getting married and things like that, obviously, we live in a society where that’s, you know, pretty much the gold standard. You know, everybody, you know, they’re in a relationship and they wanna stay long term, they’re gonna get in a relationship. Is there distinct advantages to being married as opposed to being, like, a couple that’s just together? Because, you know, like, we always know those people from, like, mostly the seventies, but who have been together, like, twenty years, but they’ve never legally gotten married.

Andreas Mittry: Distinct advantages to being married? Or there I would say there’s definitely distinct advantages to the lower earner in that it’s defined as to, you know, support and that the assets earned or purchased during the marriage are going to be community assets. So if you have kind of what I would describe as your, you know, more historical typical nuclear family where, you know, father’s working at a career type job and maybe mom’s staying home, taking the kids and not working, as much or maybe not working at all. What protections would that mother have, you know, after twenty years of that if everything was in father’s name, all the income was in his name, you know, maybe you purchase a house and she doesn’t have a credit rating. So you decide, oh, we’re just gonna put it in one spouse’s, you know, the, the, the earner’s name.

You can, there’s definitely a lot of protections for the lower earner in those situations.

Chris Hall: Right.

Andreas Mittry: There is something called Marvin v Marvin. You basically file a civil action. It’s not in family law court. It’s it’s in your regular reach of contract. Marvin v Marvin is named after the the actor Lee Marvin because he had a long term, live in girlfriend.

And she said, hey. You know? We kinda had this agreement that you were we’re gonna treat each other as we’re married and and everything we inquired is is if we were married, that you were gonna support me, you know, until, you know, throughout our years as we got older. And so the state of California said, yeah. You know what?

You can do somebody on a breach of actual express. Like, yeah, we had an agreement or implied agreement. So that’s where it gets from the Then you have an implied agreement, which wow, try and figure out what’s been implied over twenty years, right. What you were going to do with regards to support and division of property at the end of your relationship that, that gets in my opinion, very messy. So I guess from the higher earner’s perspective, if you are married, at least you know what the rules are going to be.

Well, if you do separate because you have the family law code that, you know, has very specific rules, you may not like them. You may think they’re a bit harsh on the higher earner. But the other aspect is is you kinda go into this free for all situation in a civil case and trying to decide what was implied.

Chris Hall: Yeah. There was a tax cut that Trump did when he was in office. Are you familiar with what I’m about to talk about?

Andreas Mittry: The tax cut

Chris Hall: With regards to alimony?

Andreas Mittry: Yeah. Well, I well, it wasn’t really a tax cut with regards to alimony. It made, you you no longer got to spousal support was no longer a tax write off for the payor. Right.

Chris Hall: Yeah.

Andreas Mittry: So tax cut. It was actually a tax increase because now the higher earner who who’s paying support, who presumably is in the higher tax bracket is still getting taxed on those dollars even though they’re writing

Chris Hall: Yeah.

Andreas Mittry: A check to another person.

Chris Hall: I felt like that was extremely clever. It was part of a big tax, like, plan it’s like a tax cut is what I mean, but not that specific thing. But that was where we increased the standard deduction, and you wouldn’t have to do any itemized anymore because the standard deduction was so high. But they slipped that in too where where the divorced, you know, the person paying alimony used to get a tax deduction, and the person receiving used to get income and have to claim it. And then, like, what you’re saying is, like, they remove that.

And so what’s really smart about it from the government standpoint is that the person who’s paying the taxes is realistically, like you’re saying, most likely the more the the higher taxpayer. So they’re in a bigger bracket. So it’s actually really a very clever thing to do. Like, I got divorced after that. So I didn’t have those, like like, I didn’t think that that was going to be a thing for me, but it was like I didn’t really realize how how significant it was until the first year after divorce when I did my taxes.

And I was like, jeez, Louise, you know, like, I made this much money. I gave so much to the government because, by the way, filing head of household is not the same as filing, as a, you know, married filing jointly. And then, like, we had two kids, so, like, one goes on hers tax returns, one goes on mine. Like, that first year I have filed taxes, like, holy cow. And then I realized that how much of that money that I was supposedly paying taxes on was actually not even going to me.

And I was like, oh my gosh. That was a that was huge. And so I know the people who were already in the system got grandfathered in, but there was, like, a gap in there where, like, you didn’t get grandfathered in. And I was like, those are the people I’ve kinda feel for because they they made preparations based on, you know, one version of taxability and then got a different version after they got going. So like I said, for me, it wasn’t a big deal.

As much as I don’t love the the idea of it, I mean, I knew it kind of going into it. So, like, what can you do?

Andreas Mittry: Yeah. No. That that was a major, shake up with regards to, yeah, support and and who who had to claim it for tax purposes. Yeah. I mean, if you’re paying I’m just throwing out a random number, you know, $2,000 a month and some type of spousal support.

Imagine being able to knock $24,000 off your income and Yeah. Their spouse is paying the income tax on that as opposed to, like, you have to pay $2,000 in after tax dollars, which depending on which tax bracket. And

Chris Hall: Yeah.

Andreas Mittry: Maybe that’s more like, yeah, $22,600. Right. Right. Have to earn before you can pay that.

Chris Hall: Yeah. Then I guess, in California, you can still deduct, you know, spousal. You can still deduct it, but I just don’t know if it matters, you know, too much, you know, with California’s deductions and how much they charge, you know, so. So let’s let’s kinda get into the prenup part of it. Right?

So with prenuptial agreements, like, what are sort of the is there sort of a boilerplate on those as well, or is it more of like it’s very individualized? What do you see most of the time when you see those?

Andreas Mittry: Well, it depends on what you wanna accomplish. Sometimes people have a prenup and they’re just really concerned maybe about one asset. Hey, you know, I had this home before we got married and I want to make sure it stays my home and the other, just because we’re getting married, it’s not going to be a situation where, you know, I have to worry about losing my house or portion of my house. And we’re just going to agree that, you know, whatever happens here, this house remains my separate property. And if we spend money or efforts on it during the marriage, you know, you’re not entitled.

The other spouse isn’t going to be entitled to any reimbursements or gains in equity in that house. Other people, they essentially, they get married, but they decide they want to more or less do away with all the financial things that would occur as a result of a marriage, and they just want to be married. But Hey, we’re not going to do support if we separate all our assets are going to remain our own assets. Our earnings during the marriage are just going to be our separate property earnings. They’re not going to, it’s not going to be considered community property.

Any debts we take on during the marriage are going to be our separate property debts. And, I kind of call that being, you know, the, the prenup where, okay. So essentially all you’re doing is allowing the marital status to be in there and all the other rules regarding California community property you’re doing away with, which is fine. Especially if when people are getting, you know, married later in life and maybe they’ve already, they’ve got adult kids from a prior marriage and they have significant assets or retirement and they’re like, yeah, I want to be married and travel with this person and whatnot, but we each have our own assets. We each have our own kids, adult kids, and we just wanna we don’t wanna get a mess our properties messed up or our income’s messed up, and we’re both financially secure enough to take care of each other ourselves if things happen not to work out.

And so you’ll see that primarily with people getting married later in life, usually remarried.

Chris Hall: Do you do you see any protections in there for let’s say you do have two people and they’re gonna get married and each one of them has, you know, a house. Right? One house is worth 500,000, the other house is worth $2.60. But they both have one. Right?

So they bring that to the marriage. Does putting that house before you’re married into a trust solve anything, or is it just kind of like, oh, what’s a trust? It’s not the same.

Andreas Mittry: Well, technically if you own the house outright before marriage, it’s still your separate property where it gets, where the family law rules and property rules in California come into play in a house that you own before marriage is if you start, if let’s say you owned it, but it wasn’t paid off, there was a mortgage. Now you’re using income during the marriage to pay down this mortgage that entitles the other spouse to some, interest in that home. And it’s kind of a complex algorithm that they use to figure out just how much of an interest they have. And it’s all relative to how much the house was worth when you got married, how much did you pay down in principle and how much equity was gained during the marriage. And there’s a lot of factors in there.

But more with regards to your question, do I see as far as getting separated or, I mean, putting a house into trust, would would that, protect you from the California community property laws afterwards? I you’re not gonna escape that aspect of it if you’re still using community property, in my opinion, to pay it down. Right. It’s in the trust. I don’t think that’s going to avoid that issue.

Chris Hall: It’s kinda like a like having a corporation, but you pierce the veil if you were using commingled money to fund the corporation or you know? So it’s kinda same thing. As long as there’s you can see that there’s a tie, you can’t just act like there’s not a tie because you worded it in a different way.

Andreas Mittry: Yeah. I don’t think that the fact that the home is is titled into a trust is going to get around the fact that you’re using community property to pay it out of the principal or something like that. There’s still gonna be some type of claim to reimbursement by the other spouse if they want it.

Chris Hall: I know it’s, like, the primary breadwinner in my last relationship. You know, I would say that, you know, realistically speaking, you know, I’m probably gonna be the primary breadwinner in a in a lot of relationships, you know, and that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. But what I would say is like, you know, if you’re together for, like, a couple of years as married, you know what I mean, like, that’s that to me is, like, that’s where the prenup gets hairy. Right?

Because if you wanna do a prenup and you say, listen, I love you, and if we’re together for the next two years, it doesn’t work out for some reason or, like, something happened when I didn’t know what happened, like, you know, cheated on or, you know, something, whatever. It doesn’t matter. You know, when you leave, like, I would see someone like myself not wanting to give up a substantial part of my income, again, since I’ve already given up a part of it in the previous marriage. But I would see myself not wanting to give up that, but it’s like as the years go on, like, it seems like it would be more like, just me, I would wanna give more the longer relationship lasts. Is is does anybody do that in prenups where they have, like, graduated spousal support or anything like that?

Andreas Mittry: Yeah. I’ve I’ve heard of those, and you hear a lot of them, like, some of these bigger Hollywood ones because your prenup is not supposed to, by any way, encourage dissolution. So that’s one of the things that can make it unenforceable. So you don’t want one that, you know, would encourage a person to get divorced. That I’ve heard of, I haven’t personally drafted one to where, okay, you’re going to be entitled to so much spousal support or maybe no spousal support if we separate after one year and then a step up plan as the relationship goes on.

And, but you’re always, you can do it that way. And as the payor, if you really wanted to, you wouldn’t have to, you could always pay, even if you had a document that said, I don’t have to. I mean, you would be free, of course, to, you know, write a check every month even though you were Right.

Chris Hall: Right. Especially now that it’s not, like, a it’s not taxable. Like, I could see if you were taxable to them and deductible to you that you would wanna have some sort of agreement showing that you’re not just giving them a gift, but you’re giving them support. But now that it’s not deductible or taxable, then there’s really no yeah. There’s no reason to even have that document, I guess.

Andreas Mittry: Yeah. I mean, unless the other spouse was insisting on it, like, I’m not gonna do this if I don’t get some type of protection. Right. You together in five to ten years. And and and Yeah.

Chris Hall: And I feel like with my with my ex wife, you know, the vast majority of our life together, you know, she did not work outside the home, but I felt very strongly that, her contribution to our family, to raising our kids was significant. And that’s why, you know, I was happy to give with both hands. And I feel like, you know, that’s just one person recognizing that contribution. I don’t think that in general, that contribution really does get recognized, by by a lot of people. I think that, you know, that’s why I think the courts are there is to come in and help people recognize that.

Andreas Mittry: Yeah. It’s it’s one of the factors that goes into determining long term support is that this person, you know, or go career opportunities essentially in order to do domestic type duties. That is spelled out in the statute regarding, long term spousal support.

Chris Hall: Yeah. So, we’re gonna wrap it up here in a second. Let me ask you, are there any, like, things that you would like to tell people? Like, are there some huge mistakes that can be avoided or some tips and tricks, like, when people are are getting together that will, you know, alleviate a lot of pain down the road? Like, what are what are your thoughts on that part of it?

Andreas Mittry: Well, we kinda brushed up on this, and and you’ve mentioned it. Hey. If if if you’re older and you have substantial assets before you get married, you should definitely, I in my opinion, at least consult somebody about a a prenup to find out what that may do for you or at least understand what may happen to your assets should you get married. I just, people get a big education on California family law during the divorce process. During the marriage process, you get zero education on California property.

So get a consultation on what what what what that means for you and and your assets if you get married. I think it’d be wise for people, even if you don’t have a lot of assets going in, Spend an hour finding out what this stuff means. What what does it mean to you? I have people come in and they’re like, but we kept all our accounts separate during our marriage. You know, we don’t have to share anything now.

Right? Because we always kept separate bank accounts. And like, that’s where I have to tell them, no, during your marriage, if you don’t have any type of prenup, it doesn’t matter whose name is on the paycheck or whose name that vehicle title was in. If if you acquired it during the marriage, absent it being a gift or inheritance, it’s community property. If you bought it with earnings, it’s community And, and I think that’s one of the major mistakes.

It’s just a general lack of understanding that of that. I’ve seen that numerous times people think, well, we kept our stuff separate the whole marriage. Therefore, you know, this person doesn’t have any claims to any of this money in this account because that’s the money I put aside from my earning. Right. That’s not how that works.

Chris Hall: Now the one thing I was wondering if you could speak to would be, like, a caveat to that is my understanding is is if you get inheritance and you don’t put that into, like, a joint account, but, like, it’s an inheritance from your parents, that’s something that’s not community property. Is that correct?

Andreas Mittry: That’s correct. The inheritance and gifts are not earned. The reason your paycheck, let’s say, during the marriage is community property, even though it has only one spouse’s name on it, is because that was earned. And everything that’s earned through your efforts while you’re married are considered to be the efforts of both of you. Like, like you were discussing earlier, you know, you were the primary financial breadwinner during your marriage, but your other spouse was doing more domestic duties, raising, probably spent more time raising the kids and whatnot.

Okay. So California considers you a team. You know? You couldn’t do what you were doing if she wasn’t doing what she was doing. She freed you up to do these things.

And so but if you inherited something from your grandmother dying, that that was there was no effort there on your part. Right. But that was something that somebody else gave you. Or if your parents said, you know, we’re going to get rid of the rental house, we’re just going to give it to you to live in. That would be a gift.

And if they gifted it specifically to just one of the spouses, that’s a gift. That’s not, that’s not something the community earned. Right. Right.

Chris Hall: Okay. Now is it true though?

Andreas Mittry: You talked I’m sorry. Let me just, finish up this one thought. Do keep those things in separate accounts. If it’s, if it’s money and you want, you want to maintain it separately, because as soon as it goes into a joint account, it can be very difficult to say, this, this money was, was the money I inherited. And it’s not our community property.

Cause once you co mingle it, it gives your obligation to prove what was community and what was separate property. And, and it can be very difficult, especially if you start going out a few years.

Chris Hall: Yeah. And if there’s money coming in and out that wasn’t part of that, that would be tough.

Andreas Mittry: Yeah. Oh, very, very tough. And the presumption is as soon as it hits that joint account, it’s joint. So Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Hall: Okay. Anything else you can think of that you wanna help people out with? I do love the idea that you said that, you know, anybody, you know, first marriage, second marriage, whatever, you know, just take an hour, spend time with Andreas, you know, let him tell you where you stand, and then, you know, you can decide from there on out if you want a prenup or not. But that to me was the take home message, like, you know, get help. You know, and then for those of you guys that are looking for help, I will put the link, to Andreas’ website, or his Google profile.

I’ll put that in the description below so you guys can easily find him and contact him. So anything else you can think of?

Andreas Mittry: Yeah. Absolutely. Educate yourself on on what, what marriage means to you financially. It’s it’s worth worth a few bucks in my opinion, and you can discard or do away with some of these, like I said, miss or misunderstandings other people have had, and they find out after the fact when it’s too late that, oh, you know, no. I I kinda screwed up here.

Chris Hall: Yeah. When it’s too too late. Exactly. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it.

I hope the listeners got something out of it. I know that I did. And again, like every time I have a question, a resource that I need, I call Andreas and he’s very good to get back to me. So if you need any help in your situation, I totally recommend him. I definitely give him the seal of approval, that’s for sure.

So thank you so much for being on the show, and really appreciate you.

Andreas Mittry: Hey. Thank you, Chris. See you around.

Chris Hall: Alright.