Don’t overlook prenuptial agreements during your engagement

Prenuptial agreements are often associated with the rich and famous, but they are helpful in many more marriages than only those specific cases. No matter what social and financial status you have, there are protections that these agreements can provide. Make sure that you think carefully about what you want to do early in your engagement so that you can have time to get it all together.

We realize that there is a certain negative stigma associated with premarital agreements. Just to clear this up, a prenup isn’t a hope that your marriage will fail. Instead, it is a way to get through some of the potentially contentious issues that might come up so that you can focus on your relationship. It provides protections for both spouses that can’t come from any other means.

When you are determining what to include in a prenuptial agreement, remember that you can include inheritances even if you haven’t received it yet. You should also keep in mind that you can’t include child custody matters in these since custody matters have to be handled in the child’s best interests at the time they are needed.

You and your future spouse should get the prenup created and signed as early as possible in the engagement. If you wait too long, the court might find that it is invalid because one party didn’t have enough time to review the document to determine if it was a good idea to sign it. Any prenuptial agreement that is signed under duress would likely be thrown out if it is presented to the court.