Prenuptial Agreement

Arizona Prenuptial Agreement (Prenup)

In a nutshell, a Prenuptial Agreement documents any assets and debts that the couple would like to document.

It is not uncommon for couples to seek a Prenuptial Agreement in Arizona. We prepare about 3 or 4 per week.

Why Do Couples Get a Prenuptial Agreement?

The most common reason for a Prenuptial Agreement is to list assets. For example, someone may want to document that they had a certain amount of money in an investment account, before they married their spouse. Meaning, they don’t want the investment account to be “up for grabs” in the case of a divorce.

Other times, people want to document specific debt in their prenup. For example, Party B acknowledges that they have $25,000 in student loans which is their own separate responsibility.

A Prenuptial Agreement can be also be used for special clauses. A common special clause is that both parties agree that no alimony (spousal maintenance) shall be paid.

The State of Arizona has chosen to adopt the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act (UPAA). UPAA is statute created for the purpose of standardizing the requirements of prenuptial agreements between states.

As such, the Agreement we draft will be worded based on the notion subscribed to by the UPAA that prenuptial agreements should be “entered into voluntarily and fairly upon the exchange of disclosure between the Parties.”

Who Needs a Prenuptial Agreement?

There’s a big misconception that prenuptial agreements are only for the very wealthy. However, many of my clients come to me seeking a prenup to help them sort through and pretty much pre-plan what’s going to happen in the event of a divorce.

Many people wonder if they need to have significant assets or income to enter into a premarital agreement. The answer is a resounding “No!”

Prenuptial agreements are for individuals who want to have more control on how their assets and income are ultimately allocated in the event of a divorce.

We will often get individuals who are more established in their lives. These clients have assets that they want to protect. This is likely because many people are tending to get married later on in life.

Individuals that have significant assets and income that they want to protect, certainly don’t want to leave it to the court system as to what happens in the event of a divorce. We often prepare a prenuptial agreement is for individuals who have taken time to build their estates and to build themselves as professionals.

On the other hand, we also prepare for a fair number of individuals who own their own businesses.  For those clients, this is planning on how to preserve their business assets.

Of course, sometimes clients hire because they have been married before and they see the result of going through a divorce. They want to preserve their assets, and they don’t want to have a court making decisions because perhaps they’ve had a negative experience in the past.

How Many Details Do I Put In The Prenup?

We treat premarital agreements like marital settlement agreements.  We take them seriously and make sure they are detailed.

Prenuptial agreements can be as complicated or as simple as the clients would like them to be.

It’s not uncommon to prepare a “Prenup” with 30 pages, but we also prepare prenups with only one clause: Someone just wants to keep their house as separate property.

We think it’s really important for people to understand that we spend a lot of time on the documents. The amount of time that goes into drafting a marital settlement agreement in the Arizona divorce process, is identical to the time and attention needs to be done when drafting a premarital agreement.