When New Jersey residents are planning to get married, they may be worried when their fiancés say that they want to sign prenuptial agreements. Doing so does not mean that the couple is necessarily planning for their marriage to end in the future, however. It may instead be used as a vehicle to help to reduce potential conflict and enrich the marriage.
When people work on drafting prenuptial agreements, the process forces them to have frank discussions about their finances. This can help the parties to get clear pictures about the assets and debts held by each other and to plan about how they will be handled. Couples often use prenuptial agreements to plan who will be responsible for different financial roles during the marriage, which can help reduce conflict. They may use their agreements to plan for savings contributions, bill payments and other financial plans that can help them to build their future together.
Prenuptial agreements can also help couples to plan how they will divide their assets if they do get divorced. This may help the process go much smoother than it otherwise might.
Prenuptial agreements may be used to protect the rights of both parties. It is important that these types of agreements are drafted correctly, or they may be declared invalid by the court. If a prenuptial agreement is declared to be invalid because of the provisions it contains or because of how it was drafted and signed, the assets may be divided as the court decides regardless of what the agreement states. Experienced family law attorneys may work to make certain that their clients’ agreements are legally valid and protect their clients’ interests.