From the Nolo Family Law & Immigration Center
What You Can (and Cant) Do With a Prenuptial Agreement
by Shae Irving,
J.D. & Katherine E.
Stoner, Attorney-Mediator
Understand what you can accomplish by making a
prenuptial contract before you marry.
If youre trying to decide whether or not to make a prenuptial agreement,
youll need to understand what this type of contract can -- and cant -- do for
you.
What You Can Do With a Prenup
Prenuptial agreements are most often used for the following puposes:
Keep finances separate. Every state has laws designating certain kinds
of assets accumulated during marriage as marital
property or community
property, even if these assets are held in the name of just one spouse. If a
couple divorces, or when one spouse dies, the marital or community property will
be divided between them, either by agreement or by a court. If you want to avoid
having some or all of your individual accumulations during marriage divided up
by a court, you can do so with a premarital agreement.
Protect each other from debts. Some of us bring debts, as well as
assets, to a marriage. If theres no prenup, creditors can sometimes turn to
marital or community property to satisfy the debts of just one spouse. But if
you want to make sure that saying "I do" does not mean saying "I owe," you can
use a prenup to limit your liability for each others debts.
Provide for children from prior marriages. A prenup is helpful
(perhaps essential) if either of you has children from another relationship and
you want to make sure that your children inherit their share of your property.
In a prenup, one or both spouses can give up the right to claim a share of the
others property at death, perhaps in exchange for an agreed upon amount of
property.
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