Postnuptial agreements are legal contracts signed after marriage, detailing financial arrangements in the event of divorce. They can be useful for couples with complicated financial situations, but both parties must fully agree. It is advised to have separate legal representation and choose experienced lawyers.
The postnuptial agreement is essentially the postnuptial version of the prenuptial agreement. Prenuptial agreements are more common and are contracts couples sign before they get married, detailing what happens with money and assets after a marriage ends in divorce, often overriding regional laws that would automatically determine these things. Prenuptial agreements may also list other financial agreements or expectations of marital behavior on matters such as fidelity, frequency of intercourse, or maintenance of appearance. Sometimes couples get married without a prenuptial agreement and decide later that they would be more comfortable with a legal contract, or that they would like to change a prenuptial agreement to a postnuptial agreement.
Pre-nuptial and post-nuptial agreements aren’t particularly romantic, and some people avoid them because they don’t want to think about the possibility of divorce. Yet, especially when people have complicated financial problems, or there is a huge disparity in the financial circumstances of two people who have gotten married, the postnuptial agreement can prove practical. These arrangements can be a way to ensure that assets are disposed of in the way the couple agreed upon at the beginning of the marriage, or shortly thereafter, and this can reduce tension, allowing the couple to focus on building a happy life together.
The biggest difficulty with a postnuptial agreement is that both members of the couple don’t always fully agree on how to allocate money in the event of a divorce. One member of the couple may realize that she will benefit most from not signing a postmarriage. That’s why premarital is ideal. These issues can be handled before the wedding and before the couple enters into a marriage contract which creates a certain amount of legal entitlement. However, when money isn’t the issue and a postnuptial agreement is right, many feel they have more to gain by signing it than by refusing and going through a divorce.
From a legal point of view, people need to understand that they can waive some rights if they sign a post-nuptial agreement. For example, a postmarriage that reduces a divorce settlement to less than half of the shared assets in a common-property status works to the detriment of the person signing it. On the other hand, if the estate is generous and the person knows that this reduction is for the benefit of a spouse’s family member, it may not make much of a difference.
As with a prenuptial agreement, it is often advised that both members of the couple have separate legal representation so that the interests of both parties are equally represented. Both parties should choose lawyers who are experienced in creating the postnuptial legal agreement, so that neither party can successfully void it if the marriage ends. With very few prenuptial agreement applications it may be possible to use a single lawyer, when the couple agree on what to do. It still makes sense to choose a lawyer experienced in this area, and couples may want to take the opportunity to write their wills at the same time.
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