The purpose of a Prenuptial Agreement is to make provisions for the retention or division of property upon the filing of a divorce.

The divorce proceeding itself is the only time that the terms of the ‘prenup’ are applied: when the parties separate and a divorce is pending. [ Read More… → ]

If the terms contained within a Last Will and Testament and a Premarital Agreement contradict each other, the Probate Court judge assigned to your estate case would decide upon the appropriate application of the two documents as they relate to the distribution of your assets after death. [ Read More… → ]

A Premarital Agreement (also called a prenuptial agreement or the common version “prenup”) is in essence a contract between two parties, the two spouses involved in the Agreement. [ Read More… → ]

Future inheritances are not covered in Standard Legal’s Prenuptial Agreement legal forms software, and with good reason that is fairly common-sense. [ Read More… → ]

If the soon-to-be husband and wife are concerned about their individual assets entering into the premarital agreement process — or even if they are uncomfortable having financial discussions directly — then the couple should choose to secure individual legal counsel and have the attorneys “negotiate” the document.

(Certainly the bar association would recommend this; that keeps the lawyers working!) [ Read More… → ]

Like any other contract, the parties in a Premarital Agreement can mutually agree to terminate the agreement. But the terms cannot be nullified by just one of the parties to the contract without valid legal grounds. [ Read More… → ]

A premarital agreement (often called a prenuptial agreement) must be created and signed prior to marriage to be effective.

Depending upon the state in which you live, property may become marital property automatically upon marriage if no pre-nuptial agreement is signed prior to the marriage. Creating a premarital agreement after the fact does not void these laws.

Get complete details on Standard Legal’s Premarital Agreement legal forms software here.

Generally, a pre-nuptial agreement will not “protect” a future spouse from bad debts, as the premise is not correct.

Debt incurred in one person’s name is that person’s debt alone. So regardless of the terms contained in a premarital agreement, the debts of one spouse do not become the debts of the married couple — those debts stay as the responsibility of only the person who incurred them.

Further, distinct and separate credit events will not affect a spouse or future spouse; debts that are held singly (instead of jointly) affect only the person incurring such debt.

Debt incurred by BOTH the husband and wife AFTER marriage affects both spouses, however.

In a Premarital Agreement, the parties can certainly provide income tax returns to each other as proof of income.

But better yet, they should provide full disclosure of ALL of their assets on a document like Standard Legal’s Premarital Agreement. [ Read More… → ]

Yes! As long as the couple is not yet married and the future spouse makes full disclosure of the information to the other party in advance, a Pre-nuptial Agreement could cover a financial settlement that may (or may not) come in the future. [ Read More… → ]

“Full disclosure” in a prenuptial agreement is just that – a complete listing and description of one’s assets and liabilities, shown or provided to the other party so that they are fully aware of the financial condition of the other party.

Standard Legal believes that to be binding, such agreement must be in writing.  Absent such writing, it would be difficult to determine how one could prove that “full disclosure” was made. [ Read More… → ]

A Premarital Agreement is not filed with the Court or any government agency; it is a contractual document between the prospective husband and wife. [ Read More… → ]

Signing a well-written and correctly-completed Premarital Agreement form in front of a Notary would make the prenuptial agreement legally binding and valid in every state. But the “notarized signatures” are just one element to the validity of the document — and not the most important one. [ Read More… → ]

A Premarital Agreement is a contract between two people who are contemplating marriage in the future. As such, the contract would not be valid if only one person was party to the agreement. [ Read More… → ]

The forms in Standard Legal’s Premarital Agreement software provide that each spouse will treat his or her retirement account(s) as his or her own separate property. [ Read More… → ]