Prenuptial Agreement

Non-marital properties are everything owned prior to getting married. The only exclusion is business ownership, which could be addressed in a Prenuptial Agreement. Non-marital or separate properties may also include anything received by one spouse as a gift, which may those given by the other spouse, damages and compensations won for personal injury, and all properties bought without the other after a legal separation. By contrast, marital properties include all earnings and properties and assets bought during the marriage by either or both spouses. Any commingling of funds in joint bank accounts are usually considered marital property as well.

To begin with, either party can waive the right to have an attorney present by declaring that they understand and are in agreement with all of the terms of the contract. However, some states may require couples to retain an attorney individually as necessary. As a general practice, you can hardly do worse for having a legal expert review your Prenuptial Agreement prior to signing.

Marital debt refers to all liabilities jointly incurred by a couple in marriage, for which creditors are allowed to go after the couple, individually or jointly, for debt collection purposes in the event of a divorce. For the debts incurred separately prior to the marriage, the couple can use a prenup to determine how will the debt burden be shouldered, separately or jointly.

A postnuptial agreement serves the same purpose as the Prenuptial Agreement save for the fact that it is signed after marriage. You can bring up the topic of a postnuptial agreement for any reason – perhaps you had previously thought that a prenup would not be necessary, things might have changed, you or your spouse came into great wealth after marriage.

The answer is yes. For one, a Prenuptial Agreement can be voided if it was created in bad faith. For example, if it is discovered that one of the parties was untruthful with the asset disclosure or was under duress to sign the agreement. A court may also declare a prenup null and void if it was written in a way that would incentivize a divorce, such as if one of the parties stands to gain a lot more for getting a divorce than not getting a divorce.