PRENUPTIAL AGREEMENT OR PREMARITAL AGREEMENT
What is a premarital agreement?
A premarital agreement is an agreement between two parties who plan to get married but would like a legal professional to help the parties draft an agreement to define what will be separate properties or community property. Additionally, a premarital agreement can address the issue of tax liability during the marriage, spousal maintenance, and other issues.
Can a premarital agreement address the issue of Child support?
No, one cannot create a contract for child support by drafting a premarital agreement.
Why does one need a Premarital Agreement? Isn’t love enough?
Of course, love the fuel engine to marriage and without love there would not be marriage and without marriage there would not be the notion of premarital agreement. No one enters a marriage with the thought of ending it, but if love is all you need, then having a premarital agreement between the parties would not be such a taboo issue or such an offensive issue, right?
For example: no one plan to die, but yet we bought life insurance to plan for death. That is because we are creature of habits and planners. We like predictability and we want to plan for the unexpected even though we know we cannot predict the outcome, but at least we can lessen the drama that comes with such unpredictable event by planning for it. The same concept goes with a premarital agreement. However, people associate execution of premarital agreement as taboo because we linked it with lack of trust and lack of love, while it should not be linked in such a way. Because if love is all you need and love is the fuel to the engine that is called marriage then having a premarital agreement can only be helpful to keep it that way so that you can now focus on loving one another without doubts. If you and your significant other feel the same way and would like our firm to help in drafting a premarital agreement, then feel free to contact our firm for a free consultation.
Can I draft a premarital agreement to forfeit community property upon divorce or change separate property into community property?
A premarital agreement does not address such issues, but rather one would need to draft a partition and exchange agreement or conversion agreement once the parties are married. For more details and information, please consult with an attorney so he/she may explain the process regarding such arrangements.