Page 75 - The Circle of Life

You cannot borrow money or create debt alone. Fair enough you say but this is

very bad for it also means you then become the co-principal debtor and liable for
the new debts of your spouse. Really it is everything you don't want.

Nor are you legally able to sell investments meaning shares, stocks, insurance
policies and fixed deposits. Your spouse must agree also for you can do nothing

legally on your own. Additionally anything of value like jewellery or coins or
stamps or art falls under investments if (and only if) it is held as investments.

To complicate matters further the law understands that sometimes the spouse

must do the above in the natural cause of your business and then you don't
need the spouse's permission. As you can imagine this led to many court cases

through the years and the courts look closely at what business he is involved in.

Then we have other instances where you do not need consent in writing. Note

please this does not mean no consent. You still need consent but not in writing.
This may be to sell off furniture or other effects excluding the above mentioned

of course. Or to receive money due for salary, royalties, pension or other
professional services rendered in business. Practically your boss doesn't need

your husbands' permission to pay you your salary for your professional services
rendered.

Yeah the word professional services created a lot of guffaws under us students

when still at law school. As an embarrassed professor (he was old school,
wonderful brain) explained that since prostitution is illegal to start with (not in all

countries in isn't) the other spouse could not agree legally to receive fees on
such services anyway. Simply it means money earned legally including things

like insurance pay outs and income derived from renting of separate property
which does not form part of the joint estate.

You are allowed to make small donations which will not prejudice the joint
estate. What is reasonable will depend on how much money you have. There are

no fixed limitations because of this. For some couples 100g is nothing. For

others it may be a fortune. It is all about not prejudicing the other spouse. In
practise this may come down to expensive (or not) gifts to the mistress.

74