Marriage isn’t only a public statement of a couple’s emotional commitment, but a strong legal and economic relationship. At our Law Firm, our Orange County Prenuptial Agreement lawyers help our clients establish peace of mind and thoughtful planning by way of premarital agreements and post-marital agreements. The whole process of making a prenup or postnup is an exercise in money management and financial planning that creates more than just economic benefits to the couple involved. We have executed prenups for people just starting out in their careers, those on their second marriage, financially recognized folks, as well as for billionaires.
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- Domestic Partnership Agreements
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- Pitfalls of Do-It-Yourself Prenups
- Post-Marital Agreements
- Premarital Agreements
Laws overseeing community property and mutual responsibility are getting to be more complex, and so have the troubles resolved in premarital agreements. It is a lot more necessary for marital contracts to get drafted or examined by an attorney with all the correct practical experience. Our Orange County Prenuptial Agreement Lawyers offer a lot of experience with drafting premarital agreements and cohabitation agreements for couples.
If you would like to talk with one of our lawyers about an Orange County premarital agreement, remember to call our office for a complimentary consultation.
Not every single couple needs a prenuptial agreement, and in situations where these are needed, the issues that should be dealt with may vary widely. During your consultation you should have the opportunity to go over a number of questions:
- Will a premarital agreement give protection to my kids?
- Will my interest in my business and home become community property once I marry?
- Will a do-it-yourself prenup be enforced by a State court?
- Will using a sample prenup protect my interests?
- Will an inexpensive prenup take care of me?
- What issues can a premarital agreement deal with?
- Can one get you a postnuptial agreement?
- What are the pros and cons of your postnuptial agreement?
Whether you’re thinking about going into marriage or simply a domestic partnership agreement, you are engaged, or you are married and yet considering a post-marital agreement, it’s time to begin talking over how you will cope with the issues involved.
If you are seeking a lawyer with extensive experience drafting premarital agreements, please call us or call us by e-mail today. Your first consultation is free.
Orange County Prenuptial Agreement Attorney
Whether you think of it as a “prenuptial,” “premarital” or even “antenuptial” agreement, it is the same exact thing: an agreement where a couple sets out the rules that will govern their property, debts, income and expenses. Lawyers love to mention prenuptial agreements. They keep talking themselves into thinking that, sooner or later, nearly all couples who marry – or at least who remarry after a divorce – will sign one (and also pay them a big fee). That’s unlikely.
The Basics
Prenuptial agreements sometimes appear sensible. A prenuptial agreement permits both spouses to protect their individual property. Or else, in case one of them is the owner of an asset right now and sells it after marriage, the cash becomes marital property.
A prenuptial agreement also makes it possible for both spouses to protect themselves from the other’s debts – those received before the marriage and those incurred after. And it can permit them to figure out what level of support one of them will provide to the other once they divorce or if one of them dies.
Prenuptial agreements can also correct situations in which one partner leaves behind a secure and fulfilling job to be with a geographically distant spouse. In case the marriage fails to work out, would it be fair to just send the relocating spouse back home with nothing? A lot of people would say not. A prenuptial agreement is an efficient method to provide for that.
On the other hand, a prenuptial agreement at the same time permits the spouses to agree that all they own and everything they owe will instantly become shared from their wedding day onwards, or even slowly as they stay married during a period of years. The flexibility of the prenuptial agreement is its major selling point.
A lot of people don’t do them. They may be prudent, yet premarital agreements simply don’t feel good. The idea feels like you might be giving up on your marriage before you even get started. You might be questioning a couple who are totally in love and convinced that it is a marriage meant to last forever to, in essence, work out their divorce settlement before they say “I do.” However you dress it up, this is a real downer for romance.
Moreover, prenuptial agreements are costly. Most people can finish a will without an attorney. Many folks can accomplish a divorce with no lawyer, or at the very least only having a lawyer as a coach. But it’s normally necessary to use an attorney to draw up a prenuptial agreement designed to hold up. For both these reasons, prenuptial agreements are rare. They may be getting a little more common, but they’re still rare.
Acquiring Help from a Orange County Prenuptial Agreement Lawyer
In many states, you may only enforce a prenuptial agreement if it’s fair at the time you’re enforcing it (a very difficult standard), or in case the party you’re seeking to enforce it against had representation as you discussed and authorized the agreement. As the practical matter, then, most people who negotiate and carry out prenuptial agreements are both represented by attorneys.
Not like an adversarial divorce, where you’re distrustful of your spouse and looking for someone who can defend you against an expected onslaught, you and your intended have a very good working trust of each other (if you do not, why are you getting married?), so there is no good reason you can’t shop for your respective attorneys together. That is, seek out attorneys who will be at ease with and trusting of one another, and try to find lawyers who will be comfortable talking with both of you together.
Lawyers are forbidden to talk with a party who is represented by another attorney without that lawyer’s presence. Having said that, if all four of you sit down together, there is no reason you cannot participate in a free and frank discussion regarding your choices as well as the potential risks and benefits of each option for each of you. In this particular style of conversation, all four of you – the two of you, and your attorneys – have the freedom to speak directly with anyone else in the group.
Any sensible prenuptial agreement should include a close description of the sizeable property that each of you owns and the significant debts that each of you owes. This is often probably the most strenuous a part of planning a prenuptial agreement, given it calls for a lot data collecting from both of you. In the event you and your intended are contemplating a prenuptial agreement, you can save yourself some time and money down the road in case you begin obtaining that information now to ensure that it is all set when you begin negotiating.
The specific form of the prenuptial agreement can be relatively simple (as few as 5 to 6 pages) or incredibly elaborate (running on for 100 or more pages). However discussing the agreement need not be complicated. You and your intended may sit down in the same room with your individual attorneys and end the major negotiations in an afternoon, leaving it to the lawyers to draft the language. Then you may meet for another session for which you complete the fine points of the language and actually sign the agreement.
On the other hand, once the spouses are missing basic trust and the attorneys take over, talks can run for hours upon hours distributed over months, commonly concluding in a marathon discussion and creating session on the eve of the wedding rehearsal. Do not be surprised, it has occurred before.
Expect some tension. In one sense, the negotiation of a prenuptial agreement permits each of you to look at the other at their worst, when you’re arguing about money. If in case you have a disagreement, that is okay. If you don’t disagree, well, if you do not, that may bode well for your future marriage.
Another choice: In case you and your new spouse-to-be really aren’t going to undertake the prenuptial thing, there are some sensible steps both of you could take to control the way your property, debts, income and expenses merge. First, prepare a comprehensive inventory of all things you possess and all you owe as of your wedding day. You can do this without even revealing it with your spouse. However, if the both of you can cooperate, you can actually each prepare an inventory and then sign a document indicating that you have each shown this information with your spouse.
Second, to the extent that you would like property you obtained before your marriage to stay separate, treat it like that. Avoid using it for the benefit of the marriage. If you ever sell or liquidate any of it, be sure you deposit the proceeds in a separate account in your name only and you avoid using the proceeds for the benefit of the marriage.
In case you know already that you will use some of your separate property for the advantage of the marriage, go on and pull out that much cash and deposit it into an account you can both draw out of, leaving behind the remainder of the separate property in the original account and retaining its separateness.
As your marriage continues, you may be tempted to tap into your separate property account for expenditures of the marriage, such as a down payment on a house or an investment in a business. Just be aware that whenever you tap your separate property for a marital purpose, you make it seem more like marital property.
Information about Orange County Premarital and Prenuptial Agreements
One of the most important aspects of marriage is certainty. The fact is that, with somewhere around 50% of all marriages concluding in divorce, the only method that an Orange County couple can provide for certainty are to enter into a premarital or prenuptial agreement. As an Orange County premarital agreement attorney will tell you, the agreements help out couples know where they stand during the marriage. If the unfortunate should occur and the couple gets divorced, a premarital or prenuptial agreement can help out to avoid legal and financial uncertainty. If you would like to hear more information about what these agreements include or if you would like to see if they are right for you, please call to set up a consultation with our Orange County prenuptial agreement lawyer.
