A prenup agreement is a written contract which has been signed by couple before they get married. The purpose of prenup agreement is to write about the distribution of assets and other financial instruments including stocks, retirement benefits and child support etc in case of divorce, separation and death. Due to increase in divorce and unsuccessful marriages, the more and more couple prefer to sign prenup contract before marriage. Specially, if one of the spouse is previously married and have kids, then couples should not take risk and get their prenup contract prepared because the divorced rate in second marriages are much higher than first marriage.
The prenup contract cover many things and come up with pro and con. The most of couple consider to create prenuptial agreement if:
- They or one of them own real estate property like home
- Run his or her own business or partnership in a business
- Has children from previous marriage and support them financially
Prenup contract could contain many other matters like how would the distribution of property will be done in case of death and who will pay the debt of a loan in case of separation etc. Prenup agreement could be submit to family law court where we submit marriage agreement or anternuptial contract. This contract does not required a formal prenuptial agreement template. You could get sample from your lawyer or download prenuptial agreement sample online.
Each and every agreement come with pro and con. So, before signing prenup contract, you should consider the following advantages and disadvantages:
Pros of using prenuptial agreement:
Protection of property: The main benefit and the reason behind the increase of prenup agreement is the protection of property. In this contact, each partner can define the separation of properties in case of divorce of legal separation. In case if one of them has kids from previous marriage then this could be use to do distribution of property after death.
Deal with debts: By prenup agreement, you can easily determined that how liabilities for debt will be treated among partner so you don’t need to deal with creditors for the debt you don’t own. Even creditors can’t legally go against you in case of the frailer of payments by your partner.
Child support benefits: If you have kids and you are worried about their financial expense in future in case of separation the prenut agreement could be used to define that who is going to support children financially including education expenses etc. This could be even distribute among partners equally.
It save money in future: If you already have prenup contract, then it could save cost in legal separation, divorce or antenuprial contract in future because the terms are already defined and both partners agree with it and legally bound to follow the contract.
Cons of using prenup agreement:
Financially, there is no disadvantage of prenup agreement except prenup costs you paid to family law court to make your contract legal but emotionally, there could be many disadvantages:
Prenup contract is not romantic: Signing about terms in case of divorce before getting marriage is not romantic at all. Specially if one of the partner does not agree to sign the contract, then it could ruined you marriage before you even bound with marriage agreement. So, make sure that your partner is aware about this contract before you asked him or her to sign it,
You don’t see your marriage will last forever: Prenup agreements only works if the marriage does not work. Signing or even talking about such thing before marriage means that you don’t trust your partner and marriage life and alternatively you are giving sign to your partner that you are not seeing the marriage as forever.
