What is a premarital agreement?

Many of the couples who marry in this day and age will last a lifetime, but for some others, divorce is a much more probable outcome. While no couple plans on divorcing when they set out to marry, many couples decide before they marry that they want to plan for a range of outcomes, including divorce.

Most family law attorneys include premarital agreements as part of their practices. Premarital agreements, also referred to as ante-nuptial or prenuptial agreements, are contracts that the two halves of a couple enter into before they marry.

The content of these agreements is as varied as the couples who enter into them, but they can include a plan for what will happen to shared and individual assets should the couple divorce. Many attorneys and judges will use premarital agreements as a roadmap for dividing assets during the divorce process, but be aware that these agreements are not always fully enforced as written. It is up to the judge in a case to analyze and decide whether the agreement accurately reflects the situation between the parties when they divorce.

If you and your partner are considering a premarital agreement, it is important that you are each represented by an attorney. You must both also be as transparent as possible, which means that you’ll both have to share information on your assets during the process.

If you’re unsure whether you should have a premarital agreement with your partner, do some additional research and ask your attorney for more information.