My business partner is married and Im not?

**dulow** · 01-06-2008 04:48 AM

Our company is under a LLC I was wondering what steps if any do I need to take in order to protect any outcome of my partners marriage. Do I need to be worried about if they get a divorce? We are equal partners in our company is 50/50. Any advice would be great an docs I could read would also be great.

**BusinessAdviser** · 01-06-2008 02:30 PM

Here are my thoughts:

You own 50% of the company. If your partner's marriage is dissolved, your 50% ownership in the company will be unaffected. However, your partner's 50% will likely be considered marital property. This presents at least a couple problems:

1) There are circumstances where your partner's ex-spouse could end up retaining a share in the company.

2) In order to divide the marital property between the two ex-spouses according to court order, your partner may be required to liquidate his share of the company, meaning you would have to come up with the money or you might end up with an unwanted new partner.

If I were you, I would speak with an attorney in order to get legal advice about how to protect yourself from the worst. This should then be described in your Articles of Organization.

*This is not to be construed as legal advice, but rather a personal opinion.