What do romantic relationships have to do with money?
Your host and RHP Wealth Management Partner Natalie Picha and her guest for Episode 32, Vanessa Solis-Maduzia, Family Law Attorney and Partner at Waldron and Schneider Law Firm, have a deep conversation about the legal aspects of being in any romantic relationship from 30 minutes to 30 years.
Did you know that in the state of Texas, legal separation does not exist? Neither did we.
Experience the difference of working with a firm that empowers your life—a firm that focuses on what matters most—you.
Whether you are beginning your financial journey now or have already taken steps toward your ultimate life goals, we are here to guide you.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rhp-market-talk/id1538051530
What do romantic relationships have to do with money?
Your host and RHP Wealth Management Partner Natalie Picha and her guest for Episode 32, Vanessa Solis-Maduzia, Family Law Attorney and Partner at Waldron and Schneider Law Firm, have a deep conversation about the legal aspects of being in any romantic relationship from 30 minutes to 30 years.
Did you know that in the state of Texas, legal separation does not exist? Neither did we.
Experience the difference of working with a firm that empowers your life—a firm that focuses on what matters most—you.
Whether you are beginning your financial journey now or have already taken steps toward your ultimate life goals, we are here to guide you.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rhp-market-talk/id1538051530
Welcome to RHP Market Talk , Episode 32. Being recorded today, on July 5th, 2023, right here in Houston, Texas, by RHP Wealth Management, and independent financial services and investment advisory firm. I'm Natalie Picha founding partner, and today I'm joined by our special guest, Vanessa Solis-Maduzia, family law attorney and Partner with Waldron and Schneider Law Firm. Welcome, Vanessa, and thank you for joining us.
Vanessa Solis-Maduzia:Thank you so much, Natalie, for having me today.
Natalie Picha:Now Vanessa's a local girl. She graduated from LaPorte High School in 1994. She earned her JD from South Texas College of Law in 2004. She's a certified mediator in civil and family law. Her family law practice encompasses divorce, child custody, child support, and modification of prior court orders. Get ready, guys. This list is long contempt and enforcement of court orders, grandparents' rights with possession and access, paternity determinations, termination of parental rights, adoptions, acknowledgment of paternity, and denial of paternity name changes for both adults and minor children. And she's also a court-appointed Amicus attorney, an ad litem attorney for the various family courts in Harris County, Texas. Long list. That's just a few of the highlights of Vanessa's bio. So thank you again for being here and also for being our first returning guest on Market Talk . Vanessa joined us back on episode 13 in 2021, where we had quite an interesting discussion on estate planning, family meetings, and really probate basics. And today, we wanted to do a little bit of a different conversation. Initially, we were kind of thinking that it was going to be what to do before your second marriage, but after a long conversation about all the things that happen around romantic relationships, we decided let's just talk about what you need to think about when you're in a romantic relationship and what could happen as you are moving through. Most of us have multiple romantic relationships in our lifetime, moving through those. And you might be thinking, well, what do romantic relationships have to do with money? Well, after today's conversation, I think you're going to see they have a lot to do with money. So thank you again , Vanessa. Looking forward to this conversation, and I'm going to jump right in and let's talk about moving in together.
Vanessa Solis-Maduzia:So that's a very interesting topic to go into, and you can look at that in many different aspects. You can look into that as somebody who may be right out of college young in their lives and want to move in with somebody and test the waters before they decide to get married. Or you might have people who are seasoned and have been there, done that before. And I want to go ahead and move in with somebody now. But nothing serious. So , one of the documents I would recommend if you decide to move in with somebody, regardless of the stage of life you're in, is a document that's called a cohabitation agreement. And a cohabitation agreement is similar to maybe like a premarital or postmarital agreement. It is basically a document that a family lawyer would help you prepare for when you and your significant other decide to move in together. But maybe we're not married; maybe we just want to live together. We're not thinking about being married, or we have no intention of being married, but we want to move in together. And the purpose of the habit habitation agreement is to prevent the possible argument of common-law marriage. Both parties agree we want to live together, we don't intend to be married, and this is how we're going to manage our properties. Mine is yours, yours is mine, or yours is yours, yours is mine. However, you want to manage it that way. Um, and that document just helps the parties basically set out at the beginning how they want to perceive their relationship by moving in together.
Natalie Picha:Okay? So, I mean, it's not uncommon for people to, like you said, right out of college. You see that happen quite a bit, kind of testing those waters. And sometimes, that can go on for several years. And you're amassing wealth together. You're paying bills together. We have seen it in our office where someone says, I want to buy a house together, but we're not ready to get married yet. And where it gets super complicated is later down the road where it's , where it's like he said, she said thing, well, I paid more of the bills, or I brought more of the money to the table. The cohab agreement's going to help you kind of put that all out there in , out, in front and take care of that upfront , right?
Vanessa Solis-Maduzia:Yes. It will also help if the parties decide after however many years, five years, six years, three months, six months of being together, what happens if we separate? What if this no longer works? We were together for five years. Maybe one's pressing for marriage, one is not. Maybe one's ready; one is not. And now they want to go their separate ways. And how do you untangle or detangle, you know, five years or six years of acquiring assets together, you know who gets what, when, how, or why. And so the cohabitation agreement helps all of that. And it says, look, if we ever decide to separate, this is how everything gets treated. Without a cohabitation agreement or any type of agreement between two individuals, you run the risk of somebody coming back and saying, oh, but I was the common law spouse, and Texas is a community property state. So now that we have been together for five years, I'm going to claim half the value in your investments. or I'm going to claim half value in the property because we live together, and now I'm a common-law spouse. And so the cohabitation agreement takes that or takes it as much as it possibly can out of the equation.
Natalie Picha:What are the , what are the requirements for what is considered common law?
Vanessa Solis-Maduzia:So in the state of Texas, there are three prongs. The first prong is that the parties have to agree , uh, to be husband and wife. The second prong is that they have to hold themself out as husband and wife. And the third prong is third parties must perceive them as husband and wife. Ah , now, if you heard curly, there's no time requirement for that. So, for example, I could meet a gentleman at a bar, and you know, let's just say his name is Steve Jobs, for example, right? And I go up to Steve and say...
Natalie Picha:That would be a good one, wouldn't it?
Vanessa Solis-Maduzia:It would be awesome. And I go up to Steve at, you know, Urban Cowboy, and I say to him, Hey, do you want to be my husband? And he says, absolutely. And I say to the whole bar, Hey everyone, this is my husband, Steve Jobs. And everyone says, congratulations Mr. And Mrs. Jobs. And we buy drinks, and we do that, and people perceive us and congratulate us. We've met the conditions of a common law marriage all in the span of an hour. On the other hand, I might go to Steve and say, Hey, let's move in together, and we move in together. And we lived together for 30-something years. But never once do I introduce him as my spouse. Never once did we ever discuss marriage. Never once do I send him anything that says to my loving husband or happy anniversary. We maintained separate bank accounts. We file separate tax returns. I'm separate. He's separate. You know, he has his own account. I have my own account. We never commingle. We have done this for 30-something years. The likelihood of that being a common-law marriage is slim to none. Because one, we never agreed to be married. We didn't hold ourselves out to be married. And no one perceived us as being married because we didn't do anything together as a married couple. I got it. So time is not a contributing factor. Many people think it is, it really isn't. because you can meet the requirements in a short timeframe or never meet it at all after a long timeframe .
Natalie Picha:So I think it's interesting. Relationships, particularly romantic relationships, are complicated. People don't like to think of it as a contract and think about it in this way. It's like, oh, well, if we have that conversation, let's just say prenup agreements, right? Or premarital agreements. Does this mean that we don't love each other? Often people come into our office and have conversations with us. Because we do family meetings, we do financial planning. Two people can come in with a lot of baggage related to finances. And it's also an unbalance of power. Like one may be, you know, totally the breadwinner. One may be, you know, very, very involved in the finances and the other person not. And so when I talk to clients, and I often will say it's not a bad idea to have a sit-down and talk about premarital agreements. Let's just go ahead and get it all out on the table, right? And have this conversation. Because if there is an imbalance of power on the financial side, then let's go ahead and just put it out there. Give me a little bit of some insights around you call them premarital agreements. I think people think , think of them as prenups, right? Yes. Tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Vanessa Solis-Maduzia:so the premarital agreements, which a lot of people refer to as prenups in the state of Texas, we call them premarital agreements because they are agreements that individuals into prior to marriage. It's a document not unsimilar to the cohabitation agreement, except for in the cohabitation agreement, you say we're living together but have no intent to be married. A premarital agreement is a document that says we intend to be married at some nearby future date. You actually put your potential wedding date in your premarital agreement, and you say, okay, we're going to be married at some potential future nearby date. And this is how our assets will be determined throughout the marriage. You have to remember that in the state of Texas, we are a community property state, which means that from the moment you get married until I call one of the big Ds, either until death or divorce, any assets acquired during that marriage are community property. And that also means an increase in value. So, for example, if prior to your marriage, you have an investment account that has a hundred thousand, and the day you get the day before you get married, it has a hundred thousand dollars in value. Still, you divorce ten years later, and now it's a $200,000 value, then the increase of that additional a hundred thousand is community property. Right? So that means your spouse is entitled to 50,000 of that. And maybe that's your heart or money. That's my investment money. That's my retirement money. That's the equity in my home that I had prior to my marriage. So the premarital agreement is a document that says, okay, during our marriage, this determines whether we will amass community property together or we won't. What is mine is mine. What is yours? Is yours, or what is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours. But what we acquired during the marriage, for example, we want to buy a house; this is how we're going to treat that. We come into an inheritance; this is how we're going to treat that. One of us decides to win the lottery, that how are we going to treat that? , so the premarital agreement is a contract. It's a contract between the two potential newlyweds that basically says, during our marriage, do we agree to acquire community property, or do we agree not to acquire community property? Or how do we label it? How do we put a label on five years of intermarriage? We decide we want to buy a beach home. Is that going to be considered community property? Is it a vacation home? Is it our separate property ? So it helps to have that conversation ahead of time. And again, people say, well, you know what? I'm getting married. I'm right out of college. I have nothing. Why do I need a premarital agreement? Well, it's not necessarily what you have now but what you might acquire in the future. Or this is your third or second marriage. And maybe the first two times or the go around, I was taken to the cleaners by my, you know, prior spouse, right ? And now I've learned my lesson. Well, it might be the second marriage to you, but maybe it's the first marriage to the spouse. And how do you get them protected, and how do you protect yourself? So it's definitely a conversation worth having prior to marriage to say, let's work out these agreements. Let's talk to a financial advisor. Let's talk to a lawyer, let's talk to whomever so we can have a groundwork foundation on how we want to treat our assets as we acquire them during the marriage.
Natalie Picha:Well, and communication is key. That's the big thing, right? Most people avoid these subjects at all costs because typically, you know, they're not easy conversations to have. And conflict can arise, particularly if you're, if you are, let's say, a blended family, it's a second marriage, and there are some children involved right now, it gets kind of touchy. And then what if someone passes away at a young age? And, like, if you haven't truly sat down and had this conversation. So even in our office, we often say, let's talk. If you need help, we can assist with that. We'll help you have those conversations. But having them upfront means that you can get on the same page together, and you can continue down the road together in more harmony than if you just let it fester and wait until something kind of blows up. Let's talk a little bit about, I mentioned this before, but inequality in wealth coming into a relationship because I've seen this in some of the work that we've done where someone comes into a relationship and suddenly has a pretty substantial inheritance and there was no premarital agreement in place, but all of a sudden there's this large inheritance. Sometimes it's an inheritance they didn't even know they were going to get. Right? And so they're married, and there's someone, maybe then, maybe this is a second m arriage, like you said, a second marriage for one, a first marriage for the other. And maybe there's a one child from the first marriage, but three children from this marriage. Talk about what that would look like b ecause you're already in it, right? You didn't get to plan beforehand. And this is not an uncommon scenario. I've seen this now several times.
Vanessa Solis-Maduzia:So we have what's called a separate property agreement between the spouses. So let's say you got married early, young in life, poor as church mice. We didn't have anything when we first started off. Therefore, a premarital agreement does not make sense to us at the time, 20 years, ten years, whatever timeframe. One of them's about to inherit some money, right? Well, in the state of Texas, an inheritance is considered your separate property. However, you have to be very, very careful and in ensuring that your separate property inheritance stays your separate property. The problem people get into is, oh, well, I got a check from grandma, grandpa, mama , dad of X amount, and I'm going to put it in our bank account together, and we're going to pay bills, and we're going to go on vacation with this money. Well, now you've commingled it. And in the state of Texas, when you commingle, you have to trace it to try to go back to separate. It's like mixing oil and water together. It's very difficult to separate them out once you do that.
Natalie Picha:Interesting.
Vanessa Solis-Maduzia:So one of the things you're going to want is a separate property agreement where you basically say, look , we're married, but one of us is about to inherit something, right? A piece of property for maybe mom's house who passed away or some investment account, whatever. And I want to maintain a separate property characterization. So you would want to enter into a contractual agreement. We call that, again, a separate property agreement where you and your spouse would say, okay, we're acknowledging that this asset that you're about to inherit or come into will maintain your separate property. So whatever increase in value , whatever loss, whatever investment, if you decide to take it and you know, do NFTs or whatever the case may be, whatever, you know, Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, all that maintains its separate property characterization. And so you would want that separate property agreement to lay out that particular asset. I, I've had that happen. I've had clients who were married for many, many years, and maybe there was a family business, and all of a sudden, dad or mom wants to retire from the family business and turn it over to the children. Well, now you're talking about possibly taking a separate property asset and making it a community. And what if the spouse is divorced down the road? So we would do a separate property agreement so that that particular asset, that business that one spouse is about to inherit, maintains its separate property characterization so that if a divorce happens down the road, the other spouse has a very limited claim on that property versus saying, oh well it's community and whatever increase in value and whatever happens is now part of mine. Right? It maintains its separate property characterization by having a separate property agreement between the two parties.
Natalie Picha:Here's another interesting scenario that has come up a couple of times. Let's just say you're separated for, I don't know, let's just say you never really go get that divorce. So you've been separated for 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 years long, long time, right? And something comes up, technically you're still married, and it all of that, regardless of if you've had other relationships, maybe you're with someone, and suddenly you die, nothing you can do about it at that point. You're not going to be able to take care of it from the grave. But community property is now going back. It doesn't matter that you've been separated for five-plus years, right?
Vanessa Solis-Maduzia:That's correct. In the state of Texas, we don't have legal separation. We're not California. Either you're married, or you're divorced in the state of Texas. So if you separate from your spouse and it's five years, and you go win the lottery, your spouse still has the argument that it's community property and they're entitled to it. The best document you can have is what we call a separation agreement. You can be married in the state of Texas and have an agreement that's called a separation agreement. And that agreement is very similar to the prenup, very similar to the cohabitation agreement, very similar to the separate property agreement. But you acknowledge that you're married and that the parties are going to separate. They're not divorcing, but they're separating. And the good thing about this agreement is you can actually enter an agreement not only as to your finances and how those will be treated but as to children; what about visitation, child support, child custody, possession access, and parental rights? How is that going to happen? Visitation, you know, how do I , how often do I get to see my kids if we're going to be separated? And the good thing about the separation agreement is you can use that as a document for your divorce. You can agree in the separation agreement that if the parties are going through a divorce, then the separation agreement is a document that will determine how everyone's assets will be divided. And you can utilize that as part of the divorce process. Basically, say we've entered into an agreement already to divide our property , um, and this is the agreement we're going to agree to follow. So when one of us does decide to follow for divorce, we're going to rely on this document. This is the document that's going to basically dictate how everything's done. Now, not all these documents are guaranteed. You know, I can't promise that this document is the sword and the shield that will stop the bullets from coming.
Natalie Picha:How enforceable is it, right?
Vanessa Solis-Maduzia:How enforceable. Exactly. It's like any contract, right? You enter into contract with your neighbor to mow your grass, and they're going to mow it for so often, and you're going to pay them so much. Well, if one of you breaches that fails to comply, you take them to court for a breach of contract. Same thing. All these documents are contractual obligations. Can they be breached by the other side? Can the other side refuse to follow them ? Absolutely. That's why we have courts to get all that. That's going to be all held up in the family court. It's because that's all family-based issues. So that would be handled through the divorce process or the child custody process or whatever the case may be. But we do have those documentation for all those scenarios. So if you want to be separated from your spouse and give it a dry run, let's just separate because we can no longer stand to live together. We're better separate than together, but not , we're not quite ready to pull the trigger on a divorce, then the separation agreement's going to be the route to go.
Natalie Picha:Okay? So again, so many things that we could talk about here, and because in my head, I, you know, I have all the scenarios that I've encountered. And I think it's interesting we had a conversation about some of these separation agreements. These cohab agreements. I've recently been doing some women a nd wealth conversations. And really encourage women particularly to become knowledgeable about these things because, more often than not, what I see is that they may not have a level of confidence around some of these conversations and certainly not around finances. And they'll just let the husband or partner, the man i n the relationship, kind of take care of everything. And not have any idea what's going on, right? It's that unbalance of power that we were talking about. And so, if you are kind of in that situation, I'm encouraging everyone to stop, ask questions. If your relationship is strong enough, you can have an open conversation about this and understand because the pandemic showed us that, right? Anything can happen, and you need t o know what's going on. We k ind o f laughed and had some conversation before this podcast about what someone can say or require in that unbalance of power. Because let's just say one's coming in with all the wealth. You can stipulate a lot of stuff and keep in mind, and again, I 'm g iving a shout-out to the ladies here, be aware, know that you might have to stand on your own two feet s omeday and what that could look like. Maybe the first spouse gets everything. And maybe the children from the first marriage get everything. Are you going to be able to make it in that situation? Because that is a situation that I see pretty often. But I know you've got a story there about.
Vanessa Solis-Maduzia:So, you know, I always love the saying it takes a village to help raise your children, right? I mean, there's that popular saying it takes a village. But it also takes a village for adults as well. When I say educated, I don't mean someone that's gone to school and has a massive amount of degrees. But maybe I should use the word to be knowledgeable. To be a knowledgeable person, you need to amass a village around you. And that includes financial advisors. That includes attorneys. That includes real estate agents. That includes maybe that girlfriend that maybe has been through it two , two or three times, and oh girl, let me just tell you what happened to me. Right? Right. Type situation. So I don't , I don't think a village stops when a child grows. I think a village needs to be amassed for everybody.
Natalie Picha:Right? It's our community.
Vanessa Solis-Maduzia:It's our community, right? And so, for anybody, be it male or female, you know, get to know your community members. Go and network and find people like financial advice like your women in wealth seminar that you do. I was privileged to attend one of those. And there are just so many different varieties of professionals that you can get to familiarize yourself with. So that way, when an individual, male or female, finds themselves in an unbalanced power situation where I'm the massive breadwinner, this is my third rodeo, I'm going to protect me and too bad for, so sad for you, the person that's coming into the first time, that person should say, you know what, that's fine. I know people; I can talk to a financial advisor, I can talk to an attorney, I can talk to my real estate agent or friend or whatever. So that I'm not so unbalanced in power that I have the knowledge.
Natalie Picha:So here's a question that I get asked often. It gets comes up a lot in my office. Well, do we both need our own attorney?
Vanessa Solis-Maduzia:So yes, unfortunately, you do. In the state of Texas, an attorney is not allowed to represent the opposite side of the field. Now we can do it in limited circumstances if the parties agree to sign a waiver of the conflict. So if a husband and wife both came to me, for example, for one of these documents, be it prenup, postnup separation agreement, or cohabitation agreement, I have to say to them, look, I can only represent one of you unless you sign a waiver of interest basically, or a conflict of interest. You acknowledge that I'm not supposed to represent the both of you . But the two of you understand that you're waiving that, right? Because here's the problem, wife comes to me and says, I want to make sure that if something happens to me, I get 75% of the estate. So if husband dies or happens decides to divorce me, I want 75%. I want you to negotiate that for me. You're my attorney. And then the next day husband calls me up and says, okay, well, if something happens to me, I only want her to get 25%. Well, now, how am I supposed to satisfy wife's demand for 75% of the future? Right ? But husband wants to only give her 25. I can't go to her and say, Hey, husband just called me; your future husband called me and says he only wants to give you 25. Or yeah, your future wife says she wants 75. That's a conflict of interest. I can't diligently represent both sides' interests. So that is why we highly recommend that each side have their own attorney.
Natalie Picha:So, out of curiosity, particularly when we're talking about a premarital agreement, could they work with your firm and have two separate attorneys in the same firm?
Vanessa Solis-Maduzia:They could not. We have what's called the Chinese wall, basically. It's legal terminology because we have communication all the time through our lawyers here at the office, right? Even though I'm the only family lawyer, or I might have to refer to somebody if, let's say, for example, there's a massive real estate, I might have to go to our real estate partner and say, look , there's a massive amount of real estate, this is what we need to try to do. So you cannot have two lawyers from the same firm represent two people at the same time. Unless you set up a lot of , I mean, you have to set up a lot of walls, right? You have to make sure that it's just never discussed with anybody on the other side. It's just there's so much. And that's very difficult. Because you know, partner firms are like ours. We go to lunch on Fridays, Mondays we get together, and we say, okay, what's everyone's case like? What's going on? Who needs help with what? What's a unique situation that we can bring somebody else in from our other side of the firm? So it's very, very difficult to do that. So I always recommend two separate. Now I know there are other firms that disagree with me and say, no, absolutely, I can represent both. I don't think you would be exercising due diligence if you did that. I highly always recommend each side have their own attorney with them.
Natalie Picha:Okay. To wrap it up, just making notes as you're talking, and I'm having lots of questions popping up. So I'm hoping that our listeners will reach out to us or reach out to you if they have any questions around this. But if there is one piece of advice that you could give around all of these things, just romantic relationships in general, you know, marriages, divorces, living together, separate , I mean, all of these things separated. And by the way, just for our listeners, a shout out here, too, have a great CPA. Taxes matter how you're filing your taxes jointly or separately; I mean, it plays a big part in the financial planning process, but if you could just give one big overarching piece of advice , what would that be?
Vanessa Solis-Maduzia:Always, always consult an attorney. Arm yourself with that information. I tell people who come consult with me all the time, it's like, look, whether you retain me or not, that's up to you. But my job is to arm you with knowledge and information. Get the information, get the knowledge what you choose to do it, that's up to you, right? If you want to hire me, great. If not, you want to hire somebody else, that's fine too. But arm yourself with that information. Come talk to a lawyer, say , look , this is my situation. This is what I'm trying to accomplish, or this is what the other side's trying to accomplish, and I want to make sure I'm protected. Get that information. Knowledge is key. Communication is key, right? If you want bargaining power, arm yourself with information because otherwise, the other side could maybe, maybe not. Who knows? Steamroll you. And if you don't know what you don't know, then you don't know what you don't know, right ? And how can you stand back up and say, no , wait a minute, I no? You know, can we Google everything? Absolutely right? That's I love about Google. I have clients, PNCs, potential new clients come to me all the time. Oh, well, I looked up in Google, and Google said this, well, let's just talk about Google. Shall we like WebMD? You know, Google's fine for a certain extent, right? Google doesn't have practical experience. An attorney does. Talk to an attorney, talk to a financial advisor or CPA, and say l ike, here are my questions. I had a potential new client this morning that was a referral from a financial advisor. She went to h er financial advisor and laid out her issue, a nd the financial advisor said, oh, that's not my wheelhouse, but I have a great attorney firm that I can refer you to. I'm sure they've got somebody there. Sure enough, we did. It was me, right? So always, my big advice consult an attorney.
Natalie Picha:Well, and I want to say too , when no one wants to reduce all the relationships down to a contract, for us, what we see is it's coming together on a value system, right? So it's not about not loving each other or not caring for the other person in the relationship. It's about being very frank and open and honest so that you can lay out a plan. And if you have a plan, then likely there's , um, to a lesser degree, if something does go wrong, both sides will be protected. That's really what I think is important. It's not about one side or the other being right or wrong, but it's having a value system and a plan together and knowing where you're going to go . So thank you, Vanessa. I really appreciate our conversations are always interesting, and you have so much information; you're just a wealth of knowledge for those in our local area. I just want to let you know we are hosting our second Women in Wealth happy hour on Thursday, July 13th. And this is an opportunity to come together to discuss financial and estate planning topics that really impact women today. Details about this event are posted on our LinkedIn and Facebook page, and I'm certain the topics that we've discussed today are going to come up. If you have any questions or would like to discuss today's topics, please feel free to contact us through our website at www.royalharborpartners.com. At RHP, we're passionate about planning for your financial future. Through our one-on-one conversations, we can help you navigate your personal wealth management and investment journey. How different will your life look with the right advice?
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