Prenuptial

There are two main reasons preventing people from asking their significant other to sign a prenuptial agreement in the United States. First, the majority of couples feel a prenuptial agreement predicts doomsday for the marriage. Rumor has it that when Jennifer Lopez asked Ben Affleck to agree to a prenuptial agreement, he ended the relationship. Second, the majority of couples believe that in spite of frightening statistics showing that approximately 50% of all marriages end in divorce in the United States, their love will endure and it will never happen to them.

A prenuptial does not have to be chiseled in stone. Historically divorces occur very early on in the marriage or around the 7-year and 8-year mark. One option if the marriage survives 20 years or more is to have everything become at some point community property euphemistically referred to as the dissolving prenuptial.

Conceptually, there are several ways to work up a prenuptial agreement. The most widely used formats are as follows: The parties simply identify separate property assets they own before marriage and adopt the state marital laws which are often community property. As stated in paragraph 3 above, the community can acquire an interest in the asset because of comingling community property money with the asset. Everything stays separate after marriage. Normally after marriage earnings and efforts are community property. Under this concept, no community property is ever created. Everything stays separate after marriage except accounts or asset purchases that are [...]

Even if the parties identify their separate property before marriage, it is possible for the community to acquire an interest in the separate property if community property money or effort is used on the separate property asset. For example, spouse X owns a condo before marriage, but the mortgage is paid by the community property joint account after marriage.  

If the parties do not make their own rules, then should they get divorced, state law interpreted by a State Family Law judge will set down the rules.