Prenuptial agreements have reached a certain mythical status in the United States, wherein many people think that these documents are impregnable. There are also the ideas that prenuptial agreements can’t be legally challenged, or that if someone wants a prenuptial agreement it means they are somehow already thinking about divorce. However, these are exactly as we described in the first sentence: mythical. They aren’t true.
There’s another prenuptial agreement topic we want to discuss today, and that’s the actual contents of your prenup. What provisions can you include in a prenup? What topics are off limits? Let’s take a look at a few of the ins and outs of prenup provisions:
- In terms of what you can discuss, you are allowed to protect your estate, a family business, and make concessions for children from a previous relationship. You can also protect yourself from your soon-to-be-spouse’s debts. And of course, there is the primary function of the prenuptial agreement, which is to distinguish which piece of property belongs to which spouse, and to determine the rules for property division in case of a divorce.
- Of course, this leaves a number of things that you can’t discuss in a prenup. For example, you can’t talk about child custody or child support. You also can’t waive your right to alimony. And you can’t make any provisions that deal with illegal information or activities, nor can you make provisions that would otherwise encourage divorce.
Source: FindLaw, “What Can and Cannot be Included in Prenuptial Agreements,” Accessed April 13, 2018