When you come in for a prenuptial agreement, you want to know a couple of things or have a couple things in mind. Number one is the nature and extent of your assets as they stand up to the day of the marriage. That would include anything that you have acquired up to the point that you come into my office, as well as anything that you may anticipate acquiring up to the date of the marriage.

The other thing you want to consider is how do you want to handle assets that are required from the date of the marriage going forward? Understand that prenuptial agreements are designed to alter the law of marital property and what you would otherwise be entitled to in the event the marriage does not work out.

So the question always becomes, how do you want to handle those assets that are acquired after the date of the marriage? Do you want them to remain separate property? Do you want them to remain marital property? Do you want them to be a hybrid of separated marital property? Do you want to be paying spousal support? Do you want a waiver of spousal support? Do you want to have the right of election, meaning that if in the event that you die, that the spouse has a mandatory right to collect up to one-third of your estate? Or do you want them to waive that?

You also want to consider whether or not you want to have that person act in your capacity in the even that you become ill and unable to handle your affairs.

Also one very important thing that we like to throw into our agreements is oftentimes we want to have things continue as though that there’s a prenup in place, but there’s marital assets being acquired and things that would ordinarily occur between married couples would continue. Except when you’re going down the road of divorce.

So we would want to put in language in that event where you would have the right to be able to take care of one’s affairs unless you happen to be in a scenario where you’re anticipating divorce and/or separation.

One thing you want to consider when drafting a prenuptial agreement is how will that affect the spouse’s view of what they think you want in terms of the marriage or what you see in terms of the marriage. If you create a very restrictive prenup where the wedding ceremony basically means nothing, you may be creating a scenario where the spouse feels jaded or they feel as if they’re not – they want to get married, they’re in love and does the person I’m going to marry feel the same way about me?

So one thing you want to consider when drafting your prenuptial agreement is making it fair where you’re building marital assets. Because after all, part of a marriage is the economic piece. But you’re also protecting those things that are vitally important to you in a way that doesn’t create a problem between the two of you in terms of trust and view and love of each other.