Prenuptial Agreement Lawyer in San Diego, California

The prenuptial agreement lawyers in San Diego, California at Smith Family Law can help you with your prenup. When couples get married in California, they often don’t realize that they are entering into a financial contract with their spouse. Most people wouldn’t sign off on a financial agreement without reading the fine print, yet every year most couples get married, essentially signing off on a financial agreement with their spouse they may not fully understand. Without a prenuptial agreement in San Diego, California, any income you generate during your marriage, any retirement plan you might contribute to, and any debts either you or your spouse get into would generally be considered shared income, property, or expenses.

A prenuptial agreement can offer you and your future spouse greater clarity and control over your financial lives. With a prenuptial agreement you and your spouse get to decide how your marital agreement will work financially for your family. The added benefit is that it allows you and your spouse to have an honest conversation about finances, a difficult discussion that many couples don’t have before they get married.

A prenuptial agreement isn’t just for wealthy individuals. Prenuptial agreements can protect individuals in a range of situations. Here are some common situations where prenuptial agreements can offer clarity and financial planning:

• High Net Worth Individuals. If you are bringing significant wealth into your marriage, or if you make significant income each year, you’ll likely want clarity about what marriage will mean for your finances. Your spouse can also benefit from clarity and peace of mind of knowing how your financial lives will be structured during your marriage. Without a prenuptial agreement, individuals with high incomes may lose control over a significant portion of your wealth due to California’s community property laws that make your earned income during your marriage community property. If you want to continue to have control over your finances, your investment options, and choices, a prenuptial agreement can offer necessary clarity, freedom, and peace of mind for high net worth couples. With high net worth couples, both parties often enter marriage with highly developed individualized financial plans. A prenuptial agreement allows you to either both continue what you’ve been doing individually or to develop a mutual financial plan that benefits you both. The key is that a prenuptial agreement offers choice. If you are a high net worth individual or high net worth couple getting married, you might want to speak to a San Diego, California prenuptial agreement lawyer at Smith Family Law today.
• Business Owners or Entrepreneurs. If you own your own business or plan to start a business, a prenuptial agreement can offer you the necessary protections to enter business partnerships, take out loans for your business, and offer clarity about how business income will be structured. Not only can a prenuptial agreement protect your business, but it can also protect your business partners and give you the necessary legal protections to take entrepreneurial leaps. The San Diego, California prenuptial agreement lawyers at Smith Family Law can help you with a prenuptial agreement that allows you to pursue your entrepreneurial goals.
• Inheritance. While inheritance is usually owned by the person who receives it, a prenuptial agreement can offer added clarity about how inheritance will work in your marriage and protect individuals from comingling inheritance assets and property with community property. Without a prenuptial agreement and financial planning, individuals can end up making crucial mistakes when it comes to inheritance. A prenuptial agreement offers individuals and families peace of mind that inherited estates will be utilized as intended. If you or your spouse will receive an inheritance during your marriage, the San Diego, California prenuptial agreement lawyers at Smith Family Law can help you prepare and plan.
• Children from a Prior Marriage. Without a prenuptial agreement, you could potentially be limited in what income you can give to your children from a prior marriage because half your income will generally be owned by your spouse. With a prenuptial agreement, you can set aside money for your children from a prior marriage and have clarity with your spouse about how your children will be cared for. Often a prenuptial agreement is written alongside an estate planning attorney and with the help of financial planners to help individuals who are getting married with children from prior marriages to plan for their children’s future. If you have children from a prior marriage and want to plan for them before you get married, the San Diego, California prenuptial agreement lawyers at Smith Family Law are here to help.
• Debts. Without a prenuptial agreement, any debts your partner gets into during your marriage could be considered a shared liability. Often couples enter marriage unaware of fundamental differences in approaches to finances and money. If one partner is okay with getting into consumer debt and the other partner avoids it, financial disputes during the marriage can arise. With a prenuptial agreement, you and your partner can discuss your approaches to debts before you get married and can choose to keep your debts separate so that both parties won’t be responsible for the debts that belong just to one spouse. If one spouse is entering the marriage with significant debts, a prenuptial agreement can offer protections and clarity. For example, will your spouse pay off your pre-marital debts or will debt repayment responsibility remain separate? The prenuptial agreement lawyers in San Diego, California at Smith Family Law can help you and your future spouse discuss crucial financial goals.
• Educational Debt. If one partner will be getting into educational debt during the marriage, a prenuptial agreement can offer clarity and a financial plan for you both. Without the clarity of a prenup, certain types of educational debt might be considered shared debt. The prenuptial agreement attorneys in San Diego, California at Smith Family Law can help.
• Financial Planning. Without a prenuptial agreement, your financial plan for your marriage will involve California’s community property laws, or the laws of any state where you happen to live or move to in the future. If you want clarity about how your marriage will affect your finances, a prenuptial agreement can be a good foundation for crucial discussions about financial planning. The San Diego, California prenuptial agreement attorneys at Smith Family Law can help you and your partner develop a prenuptial agreement that aligns with your financial goals.
• Sickness, Health Care, and Special Needs. If one partner has medical issues, a disability, or if there is the anticipation that nursing care will be necessary down the line, a prenuptial agreement can help a couple protect assets and can be a crucial part of a strong special needs financial plan. The prenuptial agreement attorneys in San Diego, California can help you and your partner plan for special needs and marriage.
• Couples Near Retirement Age. If you are getting married and are near retirement age, a prenuptial agreement can offer clarity about how marriage will impact your retirement planning. Couples who are planning for retirement can use prenuptial agreements to get clarity about retirement plans and to plan together for retirement. If you are getting married and plan to retire soon or are concerned about how marriage might impact your financial planning, the prenuptial agreement lawyers in San Diego, California at Smith Family Law are here to help.
• Setting Financial Goals, Together. So many couples get married with unspoken financial goals and dreams. Yet, without a clear plan and roadmap, these shared or individual goals could become a point of conflict in the marriage. Unexpected debts brought on by one partner or unclear plans can lead to issues down the line. A prenuptial agreement allows you to plan, together. The San Diego, California prenuptial agreement lawyers at Smith Family Law can help you and your partner plan for the future and create a prenup to support your goals.
• Keep Marital Assets Separate. Some married couples want to get married, but don’t necessarily want to marry their finances and bank accounts. With a prenuptial agreement, you get to decide what rules govern your marriage and not leave the rule making up to California’s community property laws. The prenuptial agreement lawyers in San Diego, California at Smith Family Law can help you write a prenuptial agreement that will keep your assets separate.
• Clarity. Most couples getting married don’t know what they are signing off on when they get married. A prenuptial agreement allows a couple to spell out specifically how marriage will impact their financial lives. Contact the prenuptial agreement attorneys in San Diego, California at Smith Family Law if you want to better understand how marriage can impact your financial life, and how a prenup can offer you and your partner greater control over it.

These are just some of the ways that a prenuptial agreement can help a couple prepare for the financial realities of marriage. Without a prenuptial agreement, your marriage’s finances will be governed by California’s community property laws. The prenuptial agreement attorneys in San Diego, California at Smith Family Law are here to help you plan for your marriage and help you plan for your future.

What is Required for a Prenuptial Agreement in San Diego, California to be Valid?

For a prenuptial agreement to be valid in San Diego, certain requirements must be met. A prenuptial agreement attorney in San Diego, California can help you and your future spouse write a valid prenuptial agreement that can offer you the peace of mind you need. Here are some things that are generally required for a prenuptial agreement to be enforceable in San Diego, California.

• Full Disclosure. For a prenuptial agreement to be valid, both parties must fully disclose their financial situation to one another. Even something missed through an honest error could be seen as suspect. A prenuptial agreement attorney in San Diego, California at Smith Family Law can help you fully disclose your situation and ask the right questions to help you cover all your bases when writing a prenuptial agreement.
• Separate Legal Representation. Both parties should each have their own lawyers to review the agreement. If only one party has legal representation or if one lawyer is representing both parties, the prenuptial agreement might not be enforceable.
• Fair. The prenuptial agreement must be fair to both parties. If the agreement only benefits one party, or if it exacerbates a financial imbalance that already exists, the prenuptial agreement may not be enforceable. Furthermore, if the prenuptial agreement leaves one party impoverished or on government benefits after divorce, the prenuptial agreement might not be enforceable.
• Timely. Your prenuptial agreement should be signed well before wedding invitations go out, and ideally before you make any big investment in wedding plans. A prenuptial agreement signed the night before your big day is a big no-no. Both parties need time to legally review all documents and to plan. Ideally, you should begin the process of writing a prenup with your lawyers when you get engaged.
• Properly Signed and Executed. Your prenuptial agreement attorney in San Diego, California at Smith Family Law can help you properly draft, sign, and execute your prenuptial agreement.

These are just some of the factors to consider when crafting an enforceable prenuptial agreement. The key thing to keep in mind is that both you and your spouse will need time to plan, will need time to get adequate legal representation, and need time to write your prenup with your lawyers. If you’re planning on getting married and are thinking of getting a prenup, reach out to the San Diego, California prenuptial agreement lawyers at Smith Family Law today.

Prenuptial Agreements Are A Common Step in San Diego, California

A prenuptial agreement can help you maintain a more equitable union with your spouse. It’s no surprise that they’re more popular than ever. Despite stigmas, they’re becoming a perfectly normal part of the marriage process. Prenuptial agreements aren’t just for the wealthy. Couples in a wide range of situations choose to get prenups. Whether this is your first marriage, or whether you’re getting remarried, contact the prenup lawyers in San Diego, California at Smith Family Law today.

At Smith Family Law, APC, our San Diego prenuptial agreement lawyers can help you draft a comprehensive prenup for your marriage.

What Can You Include In Your California Prenup?

Since 1988, California has used the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act to help spouses draft legally binding marital agreements.

To draft a legally binding prenup in California:

• Both parties must completely disclose their separate property holdings (including assets and liabilities) to each other prior to signing the agreement;
• Each spouse must have at least seven days to review the terms of the prenup;
• Both spouses must secure their own legal counsel — the same attorney cannot help both spouses;
• Both spouses must have received the full terms of the prenup, in writing; and
• Both spouses must be able to acknowledge that they understand the terms of the proposed prenuptial agreement.

You can use a prenup to determine what assets and liabilities you would like to keep separate during your marriage, and what property you and your spouse will consider marital. Additionally, your prenup can contain terms for the division of marital property in the event of a divorce. This can help couples arrange a more equitable division of property than they may otherwise receive under California’s community property laws, which divide marital property equally between parties in the event of a divorce.

Prenups can also be used to waive the spousal support obligation a party would have in the event of a divorce.

Prenups cannot be used to set terms for child support or custody. If you wish to form an agreement for child support and custody during a divorce, you should instead consider drafting a marital settlement agreement.

If you have additional questions about what you can and cannot include in your prenuptial agreement, the San Diego, California prenuptial agreement lawyers at Smith Family Law are here to help. Depending on your goals, our prenuptial agreement attorneys can help you craft a prenuptial agreement that meets your needs or help you find a legal structure that meets your goals.

Can A Court Refuse To Honor A Prenup in San Diego, California?

Courts can invalidate a prenup for any of the following reasons:

• The parties failed to comply with the requirements listed earlier when drafting the prenup.
• One party coerced the other into signing the prenup.
• One party committed fraud during the development of the prenup (such as failing to disclose their assets properly).
• The terms of the prenup are “unconscionable” (for example, the prenup waives spousal support, but one party will be homeless or destitute without receiving said support post-divorce).

Prenuptial agreements are a wonderful tool to help parties maintain an equitable marriage and ensure that they’re on the same page before taking the leap and tying the knot. The prenuptial agreement attorneys in San Diego, California at Smith Family Law can review your prenup and help you write an enforceable prenuptial agreement. Contact our prenuptial agreement attorneys today to take the next steps.

Establish A Prenuptial Agreement With One Of Our Attorneys

If you’re ready to establish a prenuptial agreement, then call one of our attorneys at (619) 431-3131 to get the process started. You can also use our online scheduling form.