Prenuptial Agreements: Planning Your Marriage
Planning a wedding can be a complicated process. Many decisions need to be made, ranging from minor decisions such as which cake to eat, to major decisions such as whether or not you should enter into a prenuptial agreement with your future spouse. While at the time of marrying, you probably can’t conceive ever divorcing your spouse, establishing a prenuptial agreement is often a prudent and wise measure to take.
Several important questions need to be answered before entering into a Passaic County premarital agreement. Things such as finances, children, and domestic responsibilities all play a role in establishing a prenuptial agreement, let’s take a closer look at how to answer some of these questions and how they may affect your prenuptial agreement.
Premarital Finances
One of the first steps when drafting a premarital agreement is determining each party’s assets and debts. You and your spouse need to be honest with eachother regarding any properties, forms of income, and debts you may have. Once you have established these assets and liabilities, you need to decide what to do with them in the event of a divorce. You can either decide to comingle your assets and debts and divide them equally, or choose to retain your respective assets and liabilities separately.
Marital Property
Similar to Premarital finances, marital property that a couple accumulates through the duration of the marriage can either be divided equitably, or couples can choose to divide them separately on a percentage based basis (who paid for the majority of the property that you own for example).
Financial Control
Another important decision to make is who will be in control of the couple’s financial decisions. Will you and your spouse make decisions together, or will one of you make the majority of the financial decisions. Additionally, what kind of people are you in regards to money. Are you spenders? Are you savers? What kinds of retirement accounts will you have, and how much will each spouse contribute into these accounts? These are all important questions to answer before marriage.
Children and Work
The last thing to consider when drafting a prenuptial agreement is your work, and your children. Are you both going to work? What about if you decide to have children, will you both continue working or will one parent stay at home with the children? What if your spouse wants to change careers, and no longer earns what they did at their old job. These are important questions to answer, and having a plan in writing can help clarify what you both want for your marriage.
Contact a Passaic County NJ Prenuptial Agreement Attorney Today
The highly experienced New Jersey family lawyers at The Montanari Law Group regularly assist clients in Passaic and Essex counties with prenuptial agreements and other family law matters. With offices in Woodland Park, we are honored to serve as trusted legal resources for surrounding communities.
Our commitment to excellence permeates our firm and is reflected in the personalized service and superior outcomes that we deliver to our clients on a regular basis. If you have questions regarding a prenuptial agreement or another family law matter, contact us today at 973-233-4396 for a free consultation.
